


Autumnal Equinox

by AirDoodles



Category: BLACKPINK (Band), GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, Drama, F/M, Family, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-08 21:24:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 49,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12262365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirDoodles/pseuds/AirDoodles
Summary: After failing to jumpstart her acting career, Jisoo returns defeated to her hometown to figure out her next move. Things get complicated when she finds out that Jinyoung, her best friend from high school with whom she parted on awkward terms, is also back in town for his sister's wedding. Despite the years they spent apart, they find that nothing much changes in their hometown, especially not their feelings.





	1. September 22, 2012

**PROLOGUE**

 

Their legs swayed over the edge of the furthest dock, shoes barely skimming the top of the water as their blackened silhouettes sat in stark contrast against the dusty mauve of the twilight. A buoy bobbed in the water nearby, and they listened to the sharp tolling of a ferry bell as it traveled across the horizon. Jisoo stabbed another rice cake with a toothpick and put it into her mouth, watching the careful look on Jinyoung’s face as he drank from the beer can.

 

“So?” she asked. “What’d you think of that one?”

 

Jinyoung creased his brows and then took another sip to be sure of his opinion. The sun was about to set on his eighteenth birthday. To celebrate, Jisoo had bought him a cake for the two of them to share and then got him to buy a variety of beers from a local convenience shop for him to sample. Always the law-abiding citizen, Jinyoung had always refused to drink alcohol at parties until he was of age.

 

“It sort of just tasted like carbonated water,” Jinyoung said, sloshing his tongue around his mouth.

 

“What?” Jisoo said, picking up the can he drank from and taking a drink herself. It was good.

 

“It was alright,” Jinyoung said, leaning back.

 

“Your taste buds are whack, you know that?” Jisoo said, reaching for a box of pepero that they’d ask bought from the convenience store. Jinyoung shrugged. Their little picnic at the end of the pier consisted of a single order to spicy rice cakes, two boxes of pepero, a sweet potato cake, and six cans of beer of different brands, of which three had been opened.

 

“I don’t know,” he said. “Beer is just beer to me. I don’t really taste a difference.”

 

“You are so lucky you have me, then,” Jisoo said, pointing a pepero stick at him. “You poor soul. Where would you be without me? Lost, probably adrift in the middle of the ocean drinking mediocre alcohol.”

 

Jinyoung scoffed. “Fine,” he said, pushing the can at her. “What does it taste like to you, Professor?”

 

Jisoo smirked as she took the can in hand.

 

“I saw a video about this. There’s a special way of tasting beer to really draw out the flavor.”

 

Jisoo brought the can closer to her face and smelled it. Metallic and strong.

 

“Don’t laugh, though,” she warned. “This is expert beer tasting technique.”

 

She tipped some of the beer into her mouth and then immediately pursed her lips and started making a gurgling noise, but then the liquid shot straight out of her mouth and onto her lap, leaving a trail of saliva dripping from her lip. Jinyoung, who had been drinking from another can, did a spit-take as he double over in laughter.

 

“You did that on purpose just to make me laugh, right?” he asked in between laugh attacks. His side was starting to hurt. Jisoo wiped the drool off with her sleeve, also laughing in spite of herself.

 

“No! That’s how you’re supposed to do it!” Jisoo said. She picked up the can again. “Hold on, let me try again.”

 

She took another sip and tried to gurgle it again, only to accidentally spit it out a second time. Jinyoung erupted into laughs again. Jisoo punched his shoulder.

 

“Yah!” she said. “Stop laughing, or next time I’ll spit it into your face!”

 

“Is that how experts do it?”

 

“Ugh. You spit beer all over your birthday cake, too! We were supposed to eat this.”

 

Jinyoung skimmed some of the frosting off the top of the cake and licked it off his finger.

 

“Still tastes fine to me.”

 

Jisoo smacked his shoulder again. “Gross,” she said. “And you shouldn’t laugh. This is serious stuff, this is the big leagues. I saw it on the internet.”

 

Jinyoung laughed again, swiping one of the decorative slices of yam from the top of the cake and taking a bite. Despite the rain of beer that came down on the pastry, it really didn’t taste to bad. Jinyoung silently commended the baker.

 

“Well, whatever that was,” he said. “You should do it again at my party, everyone will die laughing.”

 

Jisoo’s smile faded. Noticing the shift in mood, Jinyoung cast her a curious glance. She was biting her lip.

 

“I’m really sorry, Jinyoung,” Jisoo said. “But I can’t go.”

 

“What?” Jinyoung said incredulously. “Why not?”

 

“I told you,” she said, fidgeting. “I leave in twelve hours. I need to pack, and I need a good night’s sleep. My flight’s at seven in the morning.”

 

Jinyoung pursed his lips, took another drink of beer, and then leaned back against his elbows, shaking his head.

 

“You’re unbelievable,” he said. “After all the trouble I went through to make sure your boy, Bobby, would be there, you’re gonna flake on me?”

 

She smiled. “I can’t believe you’re actually going to throw a party,” Jisoo said. “How’d you swing that one by your mom? Did she finally fish her panties out of her crotch?”

 

“No,” Jinyoung said, his smile fading. He swallowed. “She’s with _him_ tonight.”

 

The silence that came over them was like a black hole, sucking their joy. Jinyoung stared into the water.

 

“She thinks we don’t know,” he said. “And Dad’s in Seoul again. Probably with someone else.”

 

Jisoo didn’t know what to say. It was a complicated emotion that took hold of her every time Jinyoung brought this up. Mr. And Mrs. Park had always been kind to her and her family, but she hated how their broken marriage was hurting Jinyoung. And she hated that she couldn’t do anything about it except listen to him.

 

“I just don’t get why they’re still together,” he said. “Obviously, neither one of them is happy. I think they’re just doing it for my sake. I should do what my sisters did. Check out of here as soon as I can.”

 

Jisoo smiled gently. “You could come to Los Angeles with me,” she said.

 

“And do what?” he said.

 

“Well, the music scene is also really intense there,” Jisoo suggested. “You could do your music there. We could get a house on Sunset Boulevard with a view of the hills and an outdoor patio, and you could write angry songs about your parents, sell it to Capitol Records and become a multi-platinum producer.”

 

He laughed again because he knew it was impossible, but it was such an attractive thought.

 

“ _We_ could get a house?” he asked.

 

“Well, obviously, it would be _my_ house, since I’d be a famous actress,” Jisoo said. “I would just be renting you a room until you actually go platinum.”

 

He looked like he had another snarky reply on his tongue, but he held it back and chose to stare at her instead. A smile crept up onto his face and he shook his head gently.

 

“Why do I feel like you’re actually going to it?” he said.

 

She smirked. “Because I am.”

 

Jisoo scraped a bit of the cake frosting off, trying to avoid the parts where Jinyoung sprayed saliva and beer all over it. The two of them were still looking out at the sky, where the clouds were swirling in the pink and purple sunset hues. The air was starting to get dryer and cooler, especially this close to the water. Jinyoung had let Jisoo borrow one of his hoodies since she forgot to dress in something warmer.

 

“Did you know that your birthday coincides with the equinox?” Jisoo said.

 

“What is that?” Jinyoung asked.

 

“It’s when there’s an equal amount of both daytime and nighttime,” Jisoo said. “There’s two of them, your birthday falls on the autumn one. The autumnal equinox.”

 

It was a mystical time. Twilight always was, but Jisoo felt it even more keenly today, now. Sunset on the day of the autumn equinox. It was neither day nor night, neither summer nor fall, it was simply was. The threshold of a new season, a summer preparing to cross over into fall. Just as she was preparing to cross over into something new.

 

“Are you scared?” Jinyoung asked. Jisoo looked at the horizon and imagined traveling across it, all the way to the shores of Los Angeles, thousands of miles away.

 

“Terrified,” she whispered. “But where would the fun be if I wasn’t scared? Scary things are the only ones really worth doing.”

 

Jinyoung smiled.

 

“So, I guess the next time I see you, you’ll be Hollywood’s next it-girl,” he said. Jisoo laughed, taking another pepero stick and biting off half.

 

“If you’re nice to me, I’ll say hi to you in public,” she said.

 

“Really? You would do that for me? You would stoop that low?”

 

“What are best friends for?” Jisoo said. Of course she was scared, but she was ignoring all that negative energy and choosing to be excited, instead. Hollywood was all she ever dreamed of growing up. And now she was going.

 

“I’m going to miss you,” Jinyoung said after several seconds of silence. Jisoo turned and looked at him fondly.

 

“I’ll miss you, too.”

 

They looked back at the sun beginning its descent past the horizon, on and on, bringing it’s light to other, distant parts of the world.

 

Jisoo was still looking at Jinyoung. Still looking at her best friend of seven-going-on-eight years. While the earth turned and the sun followed its downward path, Jisoo’s mind leaped back in time, revisiting all the small moments she had shared with him. All the piano lessons, all the recess games of tag, all the talent show rehearsals, all the homework and study sessions, every milkshake they shared at the diner, all the walks through the park, every school dance and spring fair and she wondered where in all that mess her feelings for him had shifted.

 

When Jisoo was with Jinyoung, she felt not just comfortable, but safe. Right. Correct. Like their souls were molded to each other, made to fit like two pieces of a puzzle. She wanted to protect him, from bullies, from heartbreak, from failure, from his parents’ fighting. She wanted him to achieve every goal he ever dreamed of. And she wanted to be by his side as long as she could.

 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Jinyoung said of the sunset, but when he turned to Jisoo for her reaction, she had shifted closer to him. Her eyes were soft and her lips slightly parted.

 

It was a moment too perfect to waste. Sky, purple and pink and soft. The air, cool and salty. Neither day nor night. A moment to be seized, a moment made for crossing thresholds. Jisoo’s courage surged.

 

She kissed him.

 

It was different in her imagination. Jisoo had pictured the magic of this moment so many ways, but the reality of it fit none of her fantasies. When she leaned into him and kissed his lips, she felt him tense up. And when she pulled away and opened her eyes again, she saw that his had never closed.

 

He didn’t kiss her back.

 

After what felt like an eternity of not saying anything, Jinyoung turned his face away and cleared his throat. “Do you think that was a good idea?” he asked.

 

Jisoo’s face burned up. _Shit_ , she thought. A mistake. A terrible mistake. Her blood started to course through her veins, her thoughts blared one message to her: _get out of there._

 

Before Jinyoung could say or do anything else, Jisoo stood up, turned, and ran off without another word.

 

Summer was over.


	2. June 10, 2017

****Jisoo half dragged and half lifted her luggage bag over the rocky path leading up to the sagging _hanok_ that she called home. The mid-June heat was in full swing. She had been out of the air-conditioned taxi for not even a full minute, but her shirt was already clinging to the sweat on the small of her back. 

 

It had been hot in Los Angeles, too, but not this humid. This sticky heat was a special feature of summers back in her hometown. 

 

She climbed up the stairs and let her luggage bag wheels drop to the stone base of the house. Then, she wiped her palms and tried the door. 

 

Jisoo had to lean all her weight against the door to slide it open. The bamboo hadn’t been sanded in years, and the wood creaked and protested against any movement. After several attempts to let herself in with no success, Jisoo decided it was time to roll up her sleeves and really go to town. She dug her fingers into the handle and gave it one last tug with all of her strength.

 

The door slid clear out of its frame.

 

“Fuck!” The heavy door would have crushed her if she wasn’t fast enough to catch it.

 

Jisoo caught her balance before she fell off the stone base, and then she leaned the door against the side of the house. She looked down at the door frame and inspected the damage. The damned house was falling apart. 

 

“Hello?” Jisoo called as she stepped across the threshold and into the house. The fact that her slippers hadn’t seemed to have moved so much as an inch since she left them there five years ago was mildly depressing. She kicked her shoes off and stuffed her feet into them.

 

“Hello? Mom? Harabeoji?” Jisoo pulled her luggage into the house and then leaned it against the wall. “Anyone? Sorry about the door.”

 

Was anyone home? 

 

Jisoo looked around the living room. Almost nothing seemed out of place. A pinewood coffee table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by flattened green cushions pounded down by years of kneelers. A row of potted hydrangeas stood alert on low bookshelves against the wall, framing a 30 inch flatscreen television. A sleek, black upright piano rested against one side of the room. On the wall, there was a hazy portrait of herself as a chubby baby. An open door gave Jisoo a view into the hallway—

 

Where an elderly man in _hanbok_ was wielding a shotgun.

 

“Holy sh—!” Jisoo cursed and then screamed at the top of her lungs as the old man suddenly started running and pointing the shotgun toward her. She fell to her knees and held her arms up, screaming.

 

“Intruder! Intruder!” shouted the old man. “Intruder! Intruder!”

 

“What! No, this is my house!” Jisoo screamed.

 

“Intruder!” he shook the barrel of the shotgun in Jisoo’s face as she screamed her lungs out. 

 

“Harabeoji!” a woman came sprinting out of another hallway and snatched the shotgun out of the old man’s hands. “What’s the matter with you? That’s Jisoo, Harabeoji, don’t you recognize your own granddaughter?”

 

“Jisoo?” said the old man. He turned back to Jisoo, who was still crouched on her knees with her arms in a defensive position. 

 

He took one long, hard stare at her face and then said: “Ah. Jisoo. It’s you.”

 

Jisoo scoffed.

 

“Harabeoji!” she shouted, standing up. “What in the world is wrong with you?”

 

“Eh, I thought you might be a burglar,” he said, shrugging and then turning to walk back down the hallway. Jisoo scoffed. 

 

“Well, I’m _not_ ,” Jisoo said, pressing a hand to her chest. Her heart was still pounding from the encounter. She thought she saw her life literally flash before her eyes when she saw that pointed at her. “Mom, what the _hell_? I’m not even home for a whole minute and Harabeoji is trying to kill me!”

 

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” her mother said, reaching out to pat down Jisoo’s hair. “He can’t kill anything with this stupid thing, it’s a blank.”

 

“A blank?”

 

“Well, I suppose it was real at some point,” her mother said, still holding the shotgun. “We were cleaning out the shed, found this little memento from Harabeoji’s war days. All its nooks and crannies are sealed off, so you can’t even load it. Totally obsolete.”

 

Jisoo sighed. Some welcome this turned out to be.

 

“Anyway,” her mother leaned the shotgun down against the wall and then wrapped her daughter up in a hug. Jisoo let her mother throw her arms around her and kiss her cheek and scream excitedly about how happy she was that she was coming home. In spite of the circumstances, that is. 

 

“Oh, how I’ve missed you! My baby girl!” actual tears were spilling from her eyes. Jisoo brought her arms up and rubbed her mother’s back.

 

“Missed you, too, Mom,” Jisoo said. 

 

“Oh, and Harabeoji is happy to see you, too,” she said. “Just forget the whole shotgun thing, you know your grandpa loves you.”

 

“Right,” Jisoo said. 

 

Her mother grabbed her luggage bag and started to roll it into the hallway. She had a habit of dragging her feet whenever she shuffled across the hardwood flooring of their house, and that hadn’t changed either. Jisoo’s mother explained that they had started to store some filing boxes in her childhood bedroom, but otherwise everything was just as she left it. Which was exactly what Jisoo had been afraid of. When she dropped her bottom down onto the mattress on the floor, she felt like she’d never left. 

 

“You _just_ missed your father, Jisoo,” said Mrs. Kim, dusting off some of Jisoo’s things. “But that’s fine, he’ll be home soon anyway. I just sent him out to get some ox bones. I was going to make some for you, I know you like that, but can you believe it? I forgot the ox bones.”

 

After opening up her bag and starting to unpack a few things, Jisoo’s mother led her back into the kitchen, supposing that she must be hungry after such a long journey. Jisoo sat at the table and massaged her temples when her grandfather appeared in the doorway again. He seemed to just be pacing aimlessly up and down the halls, but he paused to stare at her.

 

“Jisoo?” he said. “You’re home. What took you so long? The school is only a mile away.”

 

Confused, Jisoo tilted her head.

 

“Well, I did have to take a plane, a train, and a bus to get here from Los Angeles, Harabeoji,” she said. Her grandfather nodded and then Jisoo looked at her with a slightly concerned look. Mrs. Kim, however, just waved her off.

 

“That’s enough questions for now, Harabeoji,” her mother said, leaving Jisoo in the kitchen for a minute to usher her grandfather back to his bedroom. “You said you were going to take a nap, it’s only been ten minutes. You were out all night, go rest!”

 

Jisoo’s grandfather protested a bit, but allowed himself to be all but pushed back into the bedroom. Then Mrs. Kim rushed back into the kitchen and began to spoon some rice into a bowl. Her daughter watched her as she sat down at the family’s low table, taking her usual spot by the window. 

 

“Harabeoji was out all night?” Jisoo asked. “What was he doing?”

 

Her mother set the rice down in front of her along with a pair of shiny chopsticks. She sighed as she went to the fridge and pulled out a plastic box of kimchi. 

 

“He was just out wandering,” her mother said. “He got lost again on his way home from the market. We told him not to go since it was late, and he forgets what things look like in the dark.” 

 

She cut the kimchi and put it onto a plate, which she then served to Jisoo. 

 

“You know, maybe it’s my fault,” she said. Jisoo chewed and then swallowed.

 

“Why would say that?” Jisoo asked. “It’s not as if you could have known it would happen.”

 

“Well, the thing is, I did know,” her mother said. “I had noticed he was getting slower and more forgetful than usual, but I just thought it was because he was getting old. I just thought that happened to all old people, so I didn’t think to get him any help. Now, it might be too late.”

 

“Shouldn’t we get him professional help, then?” Jisoo asked. “There’s an elderly care home in town, they could look after him.”

 

Jisoo has heard her mother tell her over the phone that her grandfather wasn’t as sharp as he used to be, but standing in the kitchen and hearing her grandfather ask her why she took so long to walk home from school was still a shock. The man stuck a shotgun in her face when she first got there and then asked her about school even though Jisoo hadn’t been to school in years after graduating. 

 

“You have any idea how much that care home costs, Jisoo?” her mother asked. “Not something we can afford on a hardware clerk and piano teacher salary. Much help your acting venture brought us, either.”

 

Jisoo groaned. “Can we not talk about that?”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie,” Mrs. Kim said. “Too soon? Still feeling the sting of defeat? If it’s any help to you, I won’t say I told you so.”

 

“You just did, though,” Jisoo said, stuffing her face with more rice. 

 

“Is that really it, though?” he mother asked. “You’re just done? And your agency didn’t do anything to try to help you? Did you try calling—?”

 

“Yep,” Jisoo said. “I tried talking to human resources, I emailed the secretary sixteen times, I sent two to the casting director directly, and I emailed someone in administration.”

 

“Did you try sucking someone’s dick?” her mother asked, taking a sip of water. Jisoo creased her brow.

 

“What? Mom, no,” Jisoo said. Her mother shrugged.

 

“Well, maybe that’s your problem, ‘cause that usually works.”

 

“You’re not helping,” Jisoo said. “I don’t really need my mother telling me to perform sexual favors right now.”

 

“Oh, lighten up,” her mother lightly smacked her arm. “I’m just kidding, of course I don’t condone that. You used to be much better at trading jokes with me. Los Angeles changed you.”

 

“My dream is dead,” Jisoo said. “Sorry I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

 

She had been in Los Angeles for the last five years, giving herself a shot at her dream of being an actress. Her first year in the agency had been dedicated almost entirely to language lessons and adjusting to the culture, learning about her new home. Her second and third year hadn’t been so bad, she got a few gigs in commercials and some music videos, but nothing quite stuck with her. In year four, problems started to crop up. Money problems. In year five, her dream coughed, sputtered, and died on her. Money ran out. She was forced to use a pay phone to call and ask her parents to wire her the money for a plane ticket home. 

 

And now here she was. Back to square one. 

 

“It’s over, Mom,” Jisoo said, stuffing her face with rice and kimchi. “I’m sure Dad will be happy about that.”

 

“Now, wait a minute,” her mother said firmly. “I know your father hasn’t been the most enthusiastic supporter—”

 

“Now _there’s_ an understatement.”

 

“—I know he was never very enthusiastic about you running off to LA to become the next Angelina Jolie, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you to be happy. That is all your father and I have ever wanted for you, Jisoo. Your happiness.”

 

Jisoo almost rolled her eyes, but she put more rice into his mouth to keep herself from saying something disrespectful. 

 

“I am sorry that the LA thing didn’t work out, honey,” Mrs. Kim said. “But maybe this happened for a reason. We all missed you so much while you were away, and it’s not as if you can’t be happy here. I know you are trying hard to get back into the company, but here’s a thought. Why not stay for the summer and figure things out? I can get you back your old job at the school and—”

 

“Oh god,” Jisoo said, clenching her eyes shut at the thought of going back to her job at the school. 

 

“—and I am sure that something will come up. It’s okay to put your dreams on hold for a minute to get your life straightened out, Jisoo.”

 

It was right at that moment that they both saw Jisoo’s father appear in the doorway with a black plastic bag loaded down with ox bones and a leek. 

 

“What the hell happened to the door?” he said. The man dropped his keys onto the counter and was mumbling something about how much it would cost to repair the front door when he looked up and saw his daughter sitting at the table.

 

“Oh, Jisoo, you’re home,” he said. Jisoo stood and bowed slightly while her mother chewed on her bottom lip. Her father looked between Jisoo and Mrs. Kim. His wife widened her eyes at him. After years and years of marriage, he still had trouble reading her expressions, but this time she seemed to tell him to say something to his daughter. 

 

 _Just don’t say anything stupid_.

 

“Well,” he said. “I did tell you so, didn’t I?”

 

Jisoo looked at her mother and then quietly stalked past her father and into the hallway. The couple stayed silent until they heard Jisoo going back into her bedroom, the door sliding closed behind her. Mr. Kim father looked at his wife with an expression that was between anger and confusion.

 

“What was that all about?” he asked. “What were you two doing anyway?”

 

His wife massaged the bridge of her nose. “I was just trying to remember why I married you.”


	3. Square One

****The hardest part of coming back home for Jisoo was realizing how little the town had changed in the five years that she was gone. It made her feel like she, too, hadn’t changed either.

 

She felt like she was cursed. In many ways, waking up in her childhood bedroom each morning felt like the beginning of an episode of the Twilight Zone. Like she was a twenty-two-year-old woman waking up and finding herself stuck in the life and body of her seventeen-year-old self. Like a character in a video game, forced to live and die and relive as many rounds as it took to make it to the next level. A soul doomed to never reach nirvana.

 

It was surreal, and it only made her even more aware of her failure to move on.

 

It took her the better part of a week and a half to fully adjust to the time zone again. Once she was no longer eating breakfast at 5 pm, Jisoo’s mother recruited her to be her assistant director for the village children’s summer program, which was to be a musical stage production of “The Wizard of Oz.”

 

In other circumstances, Jisoo might have been excited about the project. Her own love for acting and theater started when she participated in her class’ summer program years ago. But she was still too bummed out about being forced back to square one to show any real enthusiasm. 

 

So while her mother was yelling at children in the hall and trying to get them through a painful rehearsal of “Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” Jisoo was hiding in the adjacent office with Jennie Kim, a former classmate, and the school district’s new alumni relations coordinator.

 

“You sure you never kept in touch with _any_ of these people?” Jennie asked. 

 

She was wearing a black tank top that showed off both her tattoo sleeves. Jisoo had asked her if that was a sound wardrobe choice, knowing that Jennie’s boss was an old-fashioned woman who would have two strokes in a row if she saw Jennie baring her inked up arms this close to children. Jennie said she stopped caring after the temperature climbed past 80 degrees Fahrenheit. 

 

“No,” Jisoo said, fanning herself with the “Wizard of Oz” script. “Why, what’s this for?”

 

“Didn’t I tell you that I’m putting together our first high school reunion?” Jennie said. “It’s been five years. I sent out flyers and invitations to everyone in our graduating class, but I’m having trouble reaching a couple of people. For example, Kang Subin.”

 

“You mean, Kang with the Bangs?” Jisoo said, remembering the skinny girl who refused to cut her bangs even when they were starting to fall into her eyes. Jennie crossed her legs.

 

“Yeah, her,” Jennie said, staring at her laptop screen and typing furiously. “Some of these people fell off the face of the earth for all I know. Literally vanished. Some of them might even be dead.”

 

“Knock on wood,” Jisoo said, reaching for the desk and giving a quick tap with her knuckles. “You don’t sound too enthusiastic about meeting up with everyone.”

 

Jennie wasn’t exactly Jisoo’s friend back in high school. They knew each other, were in the same class, and occasionally sat at the same lunch table. But Jennie was more of a lone wolf, spent a lot of time ditching P.E. and reading dark poetry books under the bleachers, pretending to read people’s auras, and preaching the evils of the meat industry. Jisoo thought she was kind of a badass. She was the last person Jisoo thought would wind up staying behind and becoming the school’s alumni relations coordinator. 

 

Jennie shrugged. “I don’t know, they were cool, I guess,” Jennie said. “I’m just not exactly all that curious about what everyone is up to. It’s only been five years, after all.”

 

Jisoo wanted to say that a lot could happen in five years. She could build a whole career and tear it all down in the span of five years. Some people married and divorced all in five years. Fortunes could be made and squandered in years. People that she used to see and talk to every single day for four years could turn into complete strangers in five years. But Jennie spoke up again before she could get a word in.

 

“Are you still friends with Park Jinyoung?” she asked without looking up from her Excel spreadsheet. Jisoo tensed.

 

“Um, no,” she said. Jennie looked up.

 

“You aren’t?” she asked. “Aren’t you guys, like, best friends or something? Weren’t you two in diapers together?”

 

“No,” Jisoo said. “Not unless one of us was still wearing diapers at ten-years-old.”

 

Truthfully, Jisoo was surprised that it had taken a week of being home for someone to bring up Jinyoung. At the same time, she was hoping it would take a little bit longer. 

 

Jinyoung’s father owned one of the three banks in town. In the residential area at the edge of town, there was a row of townhouses all newly constructed and glittering white, and the Parks lived in one of them with their two daughters and their young son. 

 

They met when they were ten when Mrs. Park decided to sign her son up for piano lessons. She dropped Jinyoung off at the Kims’ twice a week for an hour and a half, and Jisoo’s mother, a piano virtuoso, tutored him. The rest is history.

 

“What happened?” Jennie asked, tilting her head.

 

The question conjured up images of a mauve sky, the taste of cheap beer, the smell of salt water, and the feel of stiff lips. Jisoo cringed. 

 

“Well… we sort of just lost touch while I was away,” Jisoo said. “And I’m sure he was busy, too, doing his music thing. We just kind of drifted, that’s all.”

 

Of course, that wasn’t the whole truth.

 

Not a day went by that she didn’t think about _that_ moment and think about everything that she could have done differently.

 

It was just so awkward. She literally felt him, brick by brick, building his wall back up and leaving her out. She was embarrassed and scared. So she did what she always did when she got scared: she ran away. Ran off to Los Angeles the next day and did it without saying goodbye to him. He called and texted a few times, trying to act like everything was okay, but Jisoo just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Everything changed that day. She couldn’t just move on and act like everything was normal. 

 

“Why?” Jisoo asked, suddenly curious about why Jennie even asked. The tattooed girl shrugged.

 

“He’s one of the people who never got back to me with a RSVP,” Jennie said. “Just double checking. I am losing my fucking mind planning this stupid thing, so I want as many people as possible to attend.”

 

“Jisoo?” her mother stuck her head into the door and had an angry expression on her face. “What are you doing in here? You’re the assistant director, you’re supposed to be out here with me.”

 

“I’m helping Jennie,” Jisoo said, grabbing a legal pad and pretending to scribble something on it. Her mother narrowed her eyes at her, not amused.

 

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your acting career tanked because you suck?” she said, crossing her arms. “Honey, if you’re going to spending a lot of time here, you need a job. I pulled a lot of strings to get you this gig, so you’ve gotta perform.”

 

“Fine,” Jisoo said, getting up from the swivel chair to follow her mother out to the hall. A group of fifteen or so ten-year-old kids was lined up on the stage, holding onto scripts and wearing aprons with their characters’ names written haphazardly on the front. “What seems to be the problem, Madam Director?”

 

“This play is boring!” one of the boys shouted.

 

“Where’s the wizard? I thought this going to be about Harry Potter,” said another.

 

“Instead of red shoes, can I wear my pink ones?” asked a girl.

 

“I don’t really like scarecrows,” said the boy who was playing the scarecrow. “Can’t I be Iron Man, instead?”

 

“The character’s name is Tin Man, idiot!”

 

“Hey, Jinho!” Jisoo’s mother snapped. “We don’t call each other idiots here, you hear me? Alright, our assistant director is here, so let’s start from the top.”

 

Jisoo still wasn’t exactly sure what her job as assistant director was supposed to be, so she stood there with her arms crossed in front of the electric fan that was blasting air in from outside and watched the third graders moan and groan as they took their spots on stage. In spite of everything, she grinned. She remembered being up on that stage. Her class had done “Cinderella.” Jinyoung played Prince Charming in that program. It was fitting for him. Everyone already thought of the banker’s young son as the town’s own little prince. 

 

As for Jisoo, after being passed over for the role of Cinderella, she had burned with jealousy and rage and channeled it into her performance as evil stepsister #2. She ended up upstaging everyone in the production. 

 

She remembered how upset she had been when the teacher didn’t pick her for the lead role. “Cinderella” had been her favorite story as a child, and she always imagined herself as the kind, pretty country girl who won the heart of the prince in the end. But she got evil stepsister #2, instead. Evil stepsister #2 didn’t get a prince. She remembered wishing with all her heart that she could have changed the play so that everyone could find love at the end. But stories don’t work that way. 

 

“Mrs. Kim!” said the boy playing the Cowardly Lion. “Can we not do this right now? It’s too hot.”

 

“Yeah, it’s too hot!” said a girl. “We want ice cream!” 

 

Mrs. Kim tried to be firm and tell the kids that they would not be pausing rehearsals until they could get through this one musical number at least once without any problems. But then they started chanting “WE. WANT. ICE. CREAM!” and toppled Jisoo’s mother’s autocracy. 

 

“Jisoo, can you take a couple of the kids into town and buy a box of popsicles? Bring it back here.”

 

That was how Jisoo ended up loading up her mother’s 1990’s sedan with the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Munchkin #3 and setting off for town. It was a short drive, eight or nine minutes behind the wheel, and it was going to be her first venture into the central part of town. For the past week, she had been too busy adjusting her circadian rhythm and bargaining with God to really go anywhere near it. 

 

“So, Mrs. Kim is your mom?” asked Tin Man. 

 

“Yeah,” Jisoo said, turning onto a road.

 

“Oh, so you’re her daughter who went to Hollywood to become like super famous or something?”

 

Jisoo cringed. “Uh, yeah, I guess,” she said. 

 

She hated talking about it. She talked such a big game five years ago, bragged to anyone who would listen that she was leaving town and running off to Los Angeles to become an actress. The way she talked, she sounded so sure of herself. Now, she was back home for her walk of shame. 

 

Jisoo saw Scarecrow hulking up to ask another question just as she was pulling into the central part of the small city, but before he could utter a word, something caught Jisoo’s attention in the corner of her eye. She slammed down on the brakes, skidding to a stop right in front of the town square. 

 

Her grandfather was out of the house, and he appeared to be accosting a young woman.

 

“Oh, shit,” Jisoo put the car in park and unbuckled her seatbelt.

 

“I’m telling your mom you said a bad word!”

 

“Stay here!” Jisoo said, closing the door on them.

 

“Hey! What about our popsicles?”

 

But Jisoo was already running over to where Harabeoji was harassing a poor girl in the middle of the town square. He was raising up his walking stick and waving it at the girl and shouting at her about minding her manners and respecting the elderly. Jisoo jumped into action, first swiping Harabeoji’s walking stick before he could hit anyone with it and then placing herself between the old man and the young woman.

 

“It’s because of people like you that our country was brought to its knees!” Harabeoji was shouting in his raspy voice. “Jisoo-ya! This girl is a spy! I heard her trading secrets with the Japanese just now!”

 

“Harabeoji, stop it!” Jisoo said, trying to keep his flailing arms at bay. “Stop it! What is wrong with you?” 

 

“You keep that deranged old man away from me!” the woman shouted. She has a sleek black haircut, was wearing a white, satin jumpsuit and Louboutins. An out-of-towner for sure. Jisoo turned and gave her a low, apologetic bow.

 

“I am so sorry!” she said. “Did he hurt you?”

 

“Your senile grandfather tried to steal my iPhone 6 Plus!” the girl said, spit hurling out of her mouth when she yelled.

 

“Harabeoji, is that true?” Jisoo asked. “What is wrong with you? You’re the one who always told me to never steal things!”

 

“I don’t know what she’s talking about!” Harabeoji shouted. “All I know is that she’s a spy!”

 

“I’m not a fucking spy, you fucking lunatic!” the girl shouted. “He tried to steal my iPhone and then he made me drop it and now the screen is broken!”

 

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” Jisoo said, looking down at the girl’s iPhone. The screen actually wasn’t broken, just cracked a little in the corner. It would still work. 

 

“And then he started harassing me and tried to hit me with his walking cane!” the girl kept screaming. “I’m pressing charges!”

 

 _Fuck_ , Jisoo thought. “No!” she said. “I mean, please don’t. Look, he didn’t mean any harm, he just—“

 

“I’m pressing charges. Where’s the damned police when you need them in this godforsaken town?”  

 

“Look, I am really, _really_ sorry, he doesn’t know—“

 

“Minji!” said a young male voice. Jisoo looked a little past the young woman, Minji, and saw a young man emerging from the tailors shop up ahead, dressed in a tuxedo. Jisoo braced herself. _Great_ , she thought. Now the rich girl’s rich boyfriend was going to get involved. Jisoo turned and instructed her grandfather to go to the car. Tuxedo boy half jogged over to where they were.

 

“Minji, what’s going on here?” he asked. 

 

“Ugh,” the girl said, pressing a palm to her forehead. “I was literally just sitting here, minding my own business and talking to some clients on my phone, and this decrepit old guy just started… _attacking_ me!”

 

Jisoo panicked again. “Look, if there’s any damage to your phone, I’ll pay for it and—”

 

“Jisoo?” he said all of a sudden. Jisoo was shocked that he knew her name. She had been so focused on getting Louboutins to not press charges against her grandfather that she hadn’t even gotten a good look at Tuxedo boy. When her eyes zeroed in on his face, her blood ran cold.

 

“J-Jinyoung?” she said stupidly. 

 

It was him. Jinyoung. Park Jinyoung. Here. Now. Here. 

 

“You’re here,” he said, voicing Jisoo’s exact thoughts. She was so stunned that she couldn’t form any coherent words so she just ended up sort of parroting him.

 

“You’re here,” she said, smiling nervously. 

 

God, he looked so good. Taller, fuller, more put together. Maybe his face looked a little more tired, but otherwise, he was a vision. Jisoo tensed when she realized that he was looking her up and down, too. _Fuck_ , she thought. She had imagined various ways in which this moment might go down, but all of them involved her being prepared.

 

Jinyoung looked like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to react happy or surprised or shocked or whatever, and his facial expressions shifted between each of those emotions, unable to settle on just one. 

 

“I… I thought you would be in Los Angel—”

 

“Wait,” the girl, Minji, interrupted. “ _You_ know her?”

 

Jinyoung looked between Minji and Jisoo. He’d been so caught up in the moment that he almost forgot Minji was there, too.

 

“Yeah, uh, I…” he said, scratching his head. “Minji, this is Jisoo, she’s my… we, uh… we…”

 

His mind was drawing a blank. What were they now? Jisoo, realizing that he was at a loss for words, jumped in to save him:

 

“My mom used to give him piano lessons, and we went to the same high school,” she explained in a matter-of-fact voice.

 

“Yeah, that,” Jinyoung said, laughing nervously. “Uh, Jisoo, this is Minji.” He paused a second before adding: “my girlfriend.”

 

Jisoo hated the way her stomach lurched at the word “girlfriend.” _It’s been five years, you dumbass, of course, he has a girlfriend now_. Jisoo looked Minji in the eye and gave her a polite smile. She was a bit taller than Jisoo and had a figure like a Victoria’s Secret angel. Her lips were stained pink and she had a beauty mark to the right of her chin. Jisoo had never seen anyone so glamorous, not even in the five years she lived with would-be starlets in Hollywood. She bet that if Minji had been given five years in LA, she’d have gotten a lot further than Jisoo did. 

 

“Oh. Wow,” Minji said flatly, sizing her up. “Jisoo. In the flesh.”

 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jisoo said, bowing again. “And… I’m sorry about Harabeoji. Please, don’t press charges. He just gets confused sometimes.”

 

“Is he alright?” Jinyoung asked, his brow creasing with concern. He looked beyond Jisoo at her grandfather standing by her car, where three ten-year-old boys were sticking their heads out the window.

 

“He’s okay,” Jisoo assured him. “Like I said, he just gets confused sometimes, it happens when you get old.”

 

“You should consider putting him somewhere,” Minji reached up and started straightening out her bangs. “Somewhere where he won’t be a public nuisance.”

 

Jisoo chuckled. “Yeah. We’re working on it.” If her parents could somehow scrape up enough money, _maybe_ they could consider it. Until then, there was nothing they could do but make sure he stayed home.

 

“Minji, I’ve known Jisoo’s grandfather basically my whole life,” Jinyoung said, turning to his girlfriend. “He’s harmless. It won’t happen again. You don’t have to press charges.”

 

She didn’t look like she was ready to let go of the issue, but she was holding back for her boyfriend’s sake. Before the conversation could take a turn for the worse, Jisoo cleared her throat and spoke up again.

 

“But, anyway, what are _you_ doing here?” Jisoo said, turning her attention back to Jinyoung. “I thought you left this place for good.”

 

Jinyoung laughed lightly.

 

“I did,” he said. “But Boyoung Noona is getting married. It’s in a few weeks. I came down to spend the summer with her before she moves to Tokyo after the wedding, thought I’d bring Minji along to meet the family. I was just getting fitted for a tux. But what about you? I thought you’d be in LA, acting.”

 

Jisoo barely had time to wallow in self-pity before Minji chimed in, saying:

 

“Oh, you’re an actress?”

 

“Uh, yeah, sort of,” Jisoo started scratching her arm. A nervous habit.

 

“You must not have been very good then if the wind blew you back to this dump,” Minji said, slipping a pair of sunglasses onto her face. Jisoo didn’t know how to respond.

 

“Oh, yeah, this just a temporary thing,” she said. “LA wasn’t working out too good, so I thought I’d spend some time back here, figuring out my next move.”

 

“What happened?” Jisoo looked at Jinyoung’s face and his eyes had a compassionate look about them. It made Jisoo’s heart throb a little.

 

“It’s a long story,” she said.

 

“And we don’t have time right now,” Minji said, pursing her lips into a pout and swinging her Birkin back onto her shoulder. 

 

“Anyway, it was nice meeting you,” she said, giving Jisoo a quick smile and then turning to Jinyoung. “Babe, you really should go back inside, you’ll sweat clear through your tux in this heat and Jisoo has to take her grandfather back to his playpen. It was nice meeting you.”

 

“It was nice meeting you, too,” Jisoo said. She let out a deep breath. She didn’t even realize she had been holding it. Minji grabbed onto Jinyoung’s sleeve and was starting to pull him back toward the tailor’s shop. He was already taking two steps in that direction when he looked back at her.

 

“Jisoo, it was good to see you again,” he said. Jisoo waved at the departing couple.

 

“Ditto,” she said.

 

“I’m staying back at my house until mid-September,” he said. “If you’re around, we should catch up.”

 

Before Jisoo even got the chance to say anything in reply, Jinyoung disappeared into the tailor’s shop along with his girlfriend, Minji. Jisoo was left alone in the town square to recollect herself. She was still in a daze, her spirit was shook. She could hear the boys shouting for her to remember their popsicles.

 

“Yeah. Sure,” she whispered to herself. “Sounds… perfect.”

 

Perfect, indeed. Of course, Jisoo thought. This _would_ happen to her. She was cursed.


	4. Flash Once, Flash Twice

 

Jinyoung slung the garment bag over his shoulder and used his free hand to twist the knob and open the door. A gust of cold air greeted him and Minji as they entered.

 

“Ugh, finally,” Minji said, kicking her Louboutins off at the door. “Air conditioning.”

 

He shut the door to keep the cold air from mixing with the air inside. The Parks’ home was one of the newest houses in town and was built in an eclectic western style that made it almost identical with the nine other houses on their street. But it had a very distinct smell. Slightly burnt sugar and black tea. A scent he would forever associate with home.

 

“Hey, kiddo,” said his second older sister, Boyoung, in the dining room. She was wearing denim shorts, an oversized white t-shirt and was sitting cross-legged on the chair. His other sister, Miyoung with her wild black hair and glasses, and Boyoung’s fiancee, Yoshiki, were also sitting at the table.

 

“Got your tux?” Boyoung asked, a pen cap stuck between her teeth.

 

Jinyoung held up the garment bag. “Right here,” he said.

 

“Let’s see it, then,” said Miyoung.

 

Jinyoung unzipped the bag and held it open to show his family what the tuxedo looked like. It was nothing special, just a normal, single-breasted black tux. His sisters nodded their approval.

 

“What are you guys doing?” Jinyoung asked, taking a step forward and looking down at the mess of papers and ribbon on the dining room table.

 

“Your sister wants to rework the seating chart,” said Yoshiki, Boyoung’s very muscular Tokyo-native fiancee. He sighed as he shook his head. “ _Again_.”

 

“If you had taken care of this properly the first time I told you to, maybe we wouldn’t have to do this,” Boyoung said, playfully slapping her fiancee’s wrist with her pen. Yoshiki shrugged.

 

“My bad,” he thought. “But doesn’t it just make sense to have your parents sit at the same table?”

 

Jinyoung flinched, as did both his sisters. He knew where this was headed.

 

“That’s a hard pass,” Boyoung said, casting her eyes down. “They’ll just fight the whole time. Separate tables.”

 

“But, Boyoung, if you separate Mom and Dad, people will talk,” Miyoung said. Boyoung, however, was adamant.

 

“This is _our_ special day,” she said. “I don’t need them ripping each other’s throats out at my wedding. Separate tables.”

 

Boyoung may have been the middle child, but her forceful personality made it seem like she was the oldest. And her word was law. Miyoung shrugged and erased their mother and father’s names from the seating chart and waited for further instructions.

 

“We still have to talk to the DJ about song choices, too,” Miyoung reminded Boyoung.

 

“Ugh, I forgot all about that,” Boyoung said. “Do we have time later this afternoon? Can you come with me to meet him at that Italian place?”

 

“I have an online class in like two hours, and it’s already—”

 

“Wait a minute,” Jinyoung said, a lightbulb going off in his head. “Maybe Minji can help you. She’s free this afternoon.”

 

Minji wasn’t the most well-versed when it came to music. She listened to whatever popped up on the radio and meanwhile, he knew that Boyoung and Yoshiki were particular about music. But he saw this as an opportunity for girl bonding time, and he was eager for his sisters to approve of his girlfriend. He wanted Minji to be able to spend more time with his family. This was perfect.

 

Boyoung and Miyoung looked at each other and then at Jinyoung.

 

“Okay. Yeah, sure,” Boyoung said. “That sounds like it could be fun. Hey, Minji, do you want to—”

 

Boyoung was calling back to Jinyoung’s girlfriend, but before she could even finish her sentence, Minji had picked up a call on her cellphone and headed straight for Jinyoung’s bedroom. They all flinched when they heard the door slam. Boyoung and Miyoung exchanged looks.

 

“I’ll take that as a no,” said Yoshiki. Jinyoung sighed.

 

“She’s seemed… really upset,” Miyoung asked, adjusting her glasses. “Did something happen when you guys were in town?”

 

“No,” Jinyoung said, but then he bit his tongue. “Well, actually, yeah. Nothing major, just a little run-in with Old Man Kim.”

 

“Oh, Kim Younghwan?” said Miyoung.

 

“Who’s that?” asked Yoshiki.

 

“He’s kind of a local figure,” Boyoung explained. “He’s Jinyoung’s old piano tutor’s father. He used to be a writer, made this place kind of locally famous for a little while after it featured really heavily in one of his books. It was a war memoir, landed on the national bestseller’s list for a couple of weeks back in the 70’s, but the hype died down quick.”

 

“I’m guessing the royalties aren’t bringing in much, either,” said Miyoung. “Have you seen what their house looks like lately?”

 

“It’s not their fault,” Jinyoung said, stepping in to defend the Kims. “That house is considered a local heritage site, it’s the city’s job to help maintain it.”

 

“How is he?” Boyoung asked, trying to change the subject.

 

Jinyoung laid the garment back gently down over a chair. “He… isn’t as sharp as he used to be.”

 

Miyoung clicked her tongue. “It’s a shame what’s happened to him, he used to be so wise,” she said. “But he did always have a touch of PTSD.”

 

Yoshiki nodded along as the sisters explained some more local town history to him. Having been born and bred in the urban jungle of Tokyo, Yoshiki was fascinated by small town lore. Miyoung and Boyoung were known as town gossips when they were teenagers. Jinyoung remembers them excluding their little brother from their whispering sessions, but he always eavesdropped anyway. It suddenly occurred to him that he had another bit of good news to deliver, one that they would like.

 

“Jisoo is back from Los Angeles,” he said.

 

The sisters looked to him and gasped.

 

“No way!” Boyoung said. “Oh my god, how exciting! I love Jisoo!”

 

Jinyoung smirked. He knew that would get them excited.

 

“My god, _so_ many inside jokes that I’m on the outside of,” Yoshiki joked. “Who is Jisoo?”

 

“She’s—” Jinyoung started to explain, but Boyoung interrupted.

 

“She’s Jinyoung little friend from middle school and high school. Those two were like milk and cookies back then,” Boyoung explained. “You would like her, she’s really cute. When they were ten, they did this children’s play of ‘Cinderella,’ and she played one of the stepsisters.”

 

“She improvised this entire scene where she accused Cinderella of playing the victim,” Miyoung said. “Don’t we have a video of it somewhere around here?”

 

“Aww, I’m so happy that she’s back!” Boyoung said, kicking her feet. “Did you see her in town? That’s so exciting! How long is she staying? I’m gonna invite her to my wedding. Do we have seat open at a table somewhere, Yoshiki?”

 

“We would if you would just put your foot down and tell Yeeun that she can’t bring another person.”

 

“I thought that was my Maid-of-Honor’s job,” Boyoung said, eyeing Miyoung as she threw her hands up in surrender.

 

While Boyoung and her fiancee turned to each other and started bickering over the seating chart again, Jinyoung remembered that his girlfriend was alone in his room. So he picked up the garment bag and excused himself from the dining room. On his way over to the stairs, he looked over into the living room and saw that one of the sofas still had a blanket and two worn out pillows strewn over it, messy and unmade. He supposed his father didn’t see a point in making his bed just to mess it up again later tonight. His eye also wandered over to the upright piano in the corner of the house. It sat collecting dust.

 

He walked into his bedroom just in time to see Minji sitting on the edge of his bed, hanging up a phone call.

 

“I’ll call you back,” she whispered before ending the call. She looked up at Jinyoung with shifty eyes as he made his way over to the closet to hang up his tux.

 

“Who was that?” he asked.

 

“A client,” Minji said, reaching behind his nightstand for a charging cable. Jinyoung closed the wardrobe and stood there for a minute, trying to decide how he wanted to start the conversation.

 

“Why couldn’t you just say ‘yes’?” Jinyoung asked her gently. Minji was a very passionate woman, but that meant that he had to be careful when he wanted to discuss things with her.

 

Minji huffed her breath. “I think that old fart messed my phone up for good,” she said, dodging the question. “Damned thing won’t even charge properly anymore.”

 

Jinyoung went over to where she was sitting and held his hand out for her phone. She handed it over and he inspected the damage.

 

“It looks fine to me,” he said, turning it over. “I mean, except for the cracked screen, but you can still use it just fine. If it bothers you that much, we can go into town and—”

 

“No, I don’t want to go into town,” she said, snatching her phone back and then tossing it onto the bed. “Whatever, there’s no cellphone signal out here anyway.”

 

Jinyoung stood and fidgeted with his hands.

 

“You should go with them to talk to the DJ,” he said gently. “They’re my sisters. They want to get to know you.”

 

He saw Minji’s shoulders slump. She didn’t want to spend the summer back here. He knew that, she had made that much clear. Before his sister announced her plans to move to Japan after the wedding, Jinyoung and Minji were discussing plans to go to New York for a week or so, to tour the company’s new building in anticipation of the upcoming promotion that her father had sealed for him.

 

Truthfully, Jinyoung had been somewhat looking forward to it, too. The idea of moving to New York at the end of his contract term with the Seoul branch was a bit daunting, and he was hoping that touring the city with his girlfriend for a couple weeks would calm his nerves and make him more sure about his decision.

 

But he hadn’t been home in over a year, hadn’t seen Boyoung Noona in almost two years, and in a few weeks, there would be an ocean between them. He hated saying goodbye, but not saying it was even worse.

 

So he came home for the summer instead, and Minji, of course, was less than enthused.

 

He lowered himself onto the bed and sat beside her. “I know you were really looking forward to New York,” he said, taking her hand. “We can still go whenever, and we’re going there at the end of the summer anyway, but Boyoung Noona is about to move out of the country, and I haven’t been back here in a long time. I know it’s small and dusty and old and not exactly what you’re used to—”

 

“Yeah, no kidding.”

 

“—But it’s home,” Jinyoung said. “And it can be yours, too, if you give it a chance.”

 

We stared at her profile and willed her to look up at him, meet his eyes. Her breathing was steady and careful, and Jinyoung still cradled her hand in his. But the moment was interrupted when Minji’s phone started ringing again. She took her hand from his and reached for the phone.

 

“It’s a client,” she said plainly before taking the phone call out of the room. Jinyoung sighed and then leaned back onto his bed.

 

Miyoung and Boyoung used to tease him, ask him what his ideal girlfriend would be like.

 

His standards weren’t impossible. He always told them that his ideal girlfriend would be passionate, just like he was. Someone marvelously kind and who laughs easily. Someone he could introduce proudly to his mother and father. Someone who wouldn't pressure him to be something or someone else, but would inspire him to be a better person.

 

Though, of course, nobody is perfect, and he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that there was any one girl out there who fit the description exactly. All relationships had problems, and all relationships need to be worked on and fought for.

 

Jinyoung always reminded himself of that each time Minji disappointed him.

 

 

 

 

 

“You sure you don’t want a ride back?” Jisoo said, standing on the stone base of the house and looking down at Jennie, who was just leaving. “It’s gonna get dark soon, and the office is kind of a far walk.”

 

“No, thanks,” Jennie said, moving her hair aside and then looking up at the slowly dimming sky. “I like darkness. Light is for people who can’t be alone with their thoughts.”

 

Jisoo didn’t know how to reply to that.

 

“Okay, well,” she said. “Thanks for your help, I guess. Hope you get back safely.”

 

Jennie had just been over to the Kims’ house because Jisoo’s mother needed help sewing the children’s costumes. Jennie off-handedly mentioned that she used to make her own clothing (and Jisoo remembered the numerous uniform infractions she incurred because she ironed patches onto her skirt), and ended up being conscripted into costume duty.

 

Not that she minded. Jisoo had also been helping her out with reunion planning.

 

“Oh, before I forget,” Jennie said, turning back to Jisoo. She handed her a piece of paper. “There’s a flyer for the event. I got a graphics guy to do it up.”

 

Jisoo took the flyer in hand. The theme for the reunion was “Many Happy Returns,” and it was spelled out in letters cut out from magazines and newspapers. Whoever made the flyer made it look a little like a ransom note, but Jisoo held her tongue, in case that was Jennie’s call.

 

“Thanks,” Jisoo said.

 

“It’s not for you,” Jennie said, moving her purse to her other shoulder. “You said you ran into Jinyoung yesterday, right?”

 

Jisoo raised her brows. She forgot that she told Jennie about that. She was so stunned by the meeting that she couldn’t not tell someone about it.

 

“Oh, right,” Jisoo said.

 

“Okay, well, give that to him next time you see him,” then she turned and left.

 

Jisoo swallowed. Why was Jennie so sure that she would even bump into Jinyoung again? She hadn’t contacted him in five years, why would things be different now?

 

She turned and went back into the house, lifting the door until it covered the entrance. Her father had yet to fix it. It fit into the frame well enough, but it often didn’t stay that way. They were lucky that the town had such a low crime rate. A broken front door would _not_ be an option if they lived in Los Angeles.

 

Jisoo looked down at the flyer Jennie handed her. The reunion was to be a summer-long affair, with events spread out between days and weeks. They were optional, but of course, Jisoo knew that Jennie would prefer that more people came so that her struggle to put the event together wouldn’t be in vain.

 

Jisoo wasn’t even sure she was going.

 

There was a crash coming from her parents’ bedroom. Jisoo darted down the hall toward where the sound came from. She saw her mother sitting in the center of the room, surrounded by a pile of books and magazines that had fallen out of a box from above.

 

“Jesus, Mom, I thought you fell or something,” Jisoo said, pressing a hand to her chest.

 

Her mother looked up. She was wielding a needle and had tiny glasses on the bridge of her nose.

 

“I’m still doing the costumes,” she said. “I needed a reference photo. There oughta be _something_ in these old magazines I can copy for Dorothy’s dress.”

 

“You’re changing Dorothy’s dress?” Jisoo asked, crouching down. “Why? Dorothy’s dress is iconic. You’d be committing fashion sacrilege.”

 

“The fashion gods can strike me with fire and brimstone if they want,” her mother said. “Just let them do it _after_ opening night. Oh, look, here’s something.”

 

Jisoo’s mother reached for a thin, hardback book and pulled it onto her lap.

 

“It’s your old yearbook, sweetie! Look!” she started flipping through the pages. Jisoo, realizing it was her _high school_ yearbook, reached over and snatched it from her mother.

 

“Mom, no!” she said. Jisoo blushed. She remembered some of her less mature classmates writing questionable messages in the autograph sections. She couldn’t let her mother read them.

 

“Why not?” her mother whined. “What, did you accidentally stick your nude shots in there? I’ve seen all your nooks and crannies, I’m your mother.”

 

Jisoo smiled sweetly. “Then I guess you don’t need to see them,” she said. Then she tucked the yearbook under her arm and rushed out of the room before her mother could wrestle the thing away from her. She wasn’t above that.

 

She squeezed past her grandfather in the hallway and then barricaded herself in her bedroom. Once she was safely tucked away, curiosity got the best of her. She opened the yearbook to the autograph section.

 

“Roses are red/ Violets are blue/ Boo you whore. Have a great summer! <3” —Nayeon.

 

Jisoo smirked. She remembered that one. Nayeon was one of the popular girls in school, and she only called people that she liked “whores,” so this was actually a very special message.

 

In lieu of a message, Doyoung had doodled a picture of a himself biting a tampon. It was an inside joke. It was lunchtime, there was a tampon sticking out of her backpack, and he thought it was a cheese stick.

 

Jackson and his extra ass wrote “Jackson is so sexy” in red marker across the entire page. Minho jokingly thanked her for giving him a discount on a diamond-studded butt plug. Chaeyoung wrote down her phone number and “call me for a good time ;) “ and Lisa simply wrote “HAG,” which she said was supposed to be an acronym meaning “Have a great summer,” but she mysteriously left out the S at the end. Jennie had signed it, too, with some lyrics from a song by The Cure.

 

Jisoo ran a finger over the inked messages, wondering what became of these people. Her eye was drawn, suddenly, to some familiar writing in the corner of the page.

 

“We’re going to see each over the summer anyway, so I don’t know why you’re making me sign this. —Jinyoung.”

 

She sat back on her bed, running her thumb over the dried ink.

 

Memories started to rise up from the page. She turned to the middle of the yearbook. There was a picture of the two of them there dressed in dance costumes and sitting in a booth at a 50’s themed diner downtown. They were sharing a waffle. They had won the high school talent show with a jive and a Hall and Oates song, which was a huge upset to the upperclassmen since a pair of freshmen hadn’t won first place at the talent show in over ten years. They had spent hours choreographing and rehearsing. They were so happy the day they won.

 

It was pointless trying to avoid it, she supposed.

 

It would have been impossible to come home and dodge Jinyoung, even just the thought of him. She couldn’t revisit those seven or eight years of her memory and not expect to encounter him. He was a part of her life, a major character in the story of her formative years.

 

He was her best friend. He was her whole world. Coming home would always mean coming back to him.

 

Jisoo heaved in a deep sigh. Indeed, nothing changes in this town, and that was the scariest thing of all.

 

Shutting the yearbook closed, she grabbed the flyer Jennie had given her. Jisoo didn’t know where this sudden surge of boldness came from. She threw the yearbook onto her bed and then went out into the hall, making her way over to the backyard.

 

Her house was one of the last traditional Korean homes still standing in their town, but it was also a bit more remote. It stood with three or four other _hanok_ houses that were situated about a half mile away from the edge of the closest residential area. That was where the Parks lived.

 

Theirs was the middle house in the last row of houses. Jisoo wondered if he was staying in his old room, which was the window on the second floor, to the right. It was bright, and she could make out someone’s shadow, though she couldn’t be sure that it was his.

 

Jisoo swallowed. She put a hand on the backyard light switch. Then, hesitantly, she switched the light on, off, on, and off. Then she stared at his window.

 

For several seconds, she detected no movement. Her throat felt dry.

 

His window went dark.

 

Jisoo’s shoulders fell. She tried to reason with herself. It was getting late, maybe he was tired, or maybe he just forgot. But in the middle of her thoughts, there was a lamp light in the window.

 

Flash once, flash twice.

 


	5. Where We Left Off

****As he slammed the door to his bedroom, he thought about how this didn’t use to affect him as much. Before he departed for college, Jinyoung had witnessed his parents fight so much that he could actually sort of bear it. But when they started up again in front of him tonight, he realized that five years away from home had chipped away at the defensive membrane he had learned to put on whenever these eruptions happened.

 

It was so stupid, he thought. Every and any little thing could set them off. His mother had neglected to set a place at the table for his father. So naturally, his father brought it up, and it turned into an issue. Then Boyoung got involved, frustrated that they had done this in front of her fiancee. Then, his mother stormed up to the master bedroom, threatening to run away.

 

She wouldn’t. She never did, not for long, anyway, and never permanently. It was a favorite empty threat of hers.

 

He started pacing, wondering what he ever did in the past to get through times like these. 

 

Jinyoung went over to the window, which gave him a view down into the garden out back. Minji was there, taking another call from a client. He and Minji were somewhat similar, he thought, in that they both considered themselves workaholics, but even he didn’t have clients this needy. Whoever it was, he or she seemed to need constant guidance and hand-holding. Minji was turned away, so he couldn’t read her expression. He hoped the phone call would end soon. He hoped she would come up soon. He never did bode well on his own, especially when his parents were at it again. 

 

He momentarily considered going down to the garden himself. He could sneak up behind Minji and hug her from the back. She hated being interrupted while on a call, but given the circumstances, maybe she would understand?

 

That was when something caught his attention in the periphery. It came from beyond the grassy gap between the Parks’ backyard and the row of traditional houses in the distance. A light flashed twice. 

 

Jinyoung held his breath. Was that real? Did he really see that?

 

It was their signal, their secret code. His and Jisoo’s. They came up with it when they were about twelve or thirteen. Two flashes. That was their code for “Are you awake?” and, tacitly, it also meant “can I come over?”

 

Jinyoung clenched his fist against the desk. He was positive that it was her. Two flashes, two beats, each one timed uniformly. 

 

Was she asking to come over? Now? He looked down at the digital clock on his desk and saw that it was almost ten in the evening. His family would be getting ready for bed soon. It was hardly the ideal time. 

 

Yet, then again, the lateness of the hour had never stopped them before. They used to use the light signal to sneak out to parties at one in the morning or go on 3 am pancake runs at the 24-hour diner. 

 

And he did miss her. God, did he miss her. Especially now. 

 

Jinyoung switched all the lights off in his room. Then he lifted the blinds up from the window and reached for the lamp on his desktop, flicking it on, off, on, off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jisoo sat in the driver’s seat, nervously tapping her thumbs against the wheel. She was parked on the street in front of the Parks’ house and it was almost ten in the evening. It was a very short drive, five or so minutes, but it only took thirty seconds on the roads for her to start panicking.

 

Which was weird because she never panicked on her way to the Parks’ house. Ever. The Parks’ house was like her second home, or at least it was five years ago. 

 

Jennie’s flyer was folded in half and lying on the passenger seat. Jisoo tried to come up with a script of some sort. It would be too awkward if she just handed him the flyer and left. That wasn’t the purpose of their light signals. Two flashes meant “Are you up?” Two flashes meant “Is this a bad time?” Two flashes meant something important had come up. 

 

She had decided she was going to be friends with him again. Five years had passed. She was sure that that was enough time. She was sure that by now, she ought to be well out of love with him and ready to ease back into a steady, completely platonic friendship with him. After all, that was why she had come home: to move on from her failures, including this one. But none of that was going to happen unless she addressed her long silence. Five years was also a lot of time to catch up to.

 

She was in the middle of settling on her words when she saw the Parks’ screen door swing open, and a figure emerged. Jinyoung stood on the porch, looking left and right twice before seeing her sitting in the car.

 

With a sigh, Jisoo grabbed the flyer and then exited the vehicle. Jinyoung watched her as she crossed the street, jogged up to the porch, and then stopped in front of him.

 

Déjà vu.

 

They stood there for a little while, staring without trying to make it obvious that they were staring. Their last meeting had been fast and brief, and Jinyoung didn’t have a chance to get a good look at Jisoo. He was curious about her. 

 

She had gained a little weight, giving her silhouette a more womanly curve. Her skin was a little tanner, kissed by California sunshine. She had always had puffs under her eyes, but this was the first time they made her look tired. All at once, the tenseness in his body left him, little by little. 

 

It was good to see her. He needed to see her.

 

“Hey,” Jisoo said, putting on a smile because she wasn’t sure what else to do. Jinyoung flashed one back at her.

 

“Hi.”

 

“Is your whole family home?” she asked. Jinyoung looked back at the front door for a minute.

 

“Yeah, they’re just inside,” he said. 

 

Jisoo nodded. What else? “Is your girlfriend staying here, too?” she asked. 

 

“Yeah, she’s taking a phone call right now in Miyoung's garden,” he said. Minji didn’t know he was out here talking to Jisoo. He wasn’t sure what to think of that fact.

 

“Oh. I see,” Jisoo said, hating how stale this conversation was. She was in the middle of trying to come up with another thing to say when Jinyoung let out a deep breath and said:

 

“So, what’s up? I saw you signal.”

 

“Oh, right,” Jisoo said. She held Jennie’s flyer out to him. “Um, I actually just came to give you this. It’s a flyer for our first five-year high school reunion, for the class of 2012.”

 

Jinyoung took the flyer and smoothed it out. It was a little tough to read the mismatched fonts, but after squinting at it a bit, he was able to make out the event title and the dates, times, and locations. This reunion was to be a summer-long affair. He smirked.

 

“Damn. 2012,” he said. At twenty-two, they could hardly be considered old. But at twenty-two, 2012 was one-fifth of their lifetime away.

 

“It feels like it was a hundred years ago,” Jisoo said, chuckling. “But at the same time, it also feels like it was just last week. Jennie’s putting it together, and she’s worked so hard on it, so I’ve been helping her reach out to our classmates and stuff.”

 

Jinyoung looked down at the list of events. The first one was a cocktail mixer that was coming up in a week. It was taking place in their high school gym. He laughed quietly to himself thinking about rolling up to his old school again. A trip down amnesia lane.

 

“Jennie as in… Jennie Kim?” Jinyoung asked. 

 

Jisoo crossed her arms and nodded. “Yeah. She’s the alumni relations coordinator now.”

 

Jinyoung blinked at her. “ _Jennie Kim_ is the alumni relations coordinator?”

 

If memory served, Jinyoung knew Jennie Kim as the school’s angry goth wallflower who spent all her time incurring uniform infractions and searching for a color darker than black. He was about to say all this aloud, but one look at his expression and Jisoo could already tell what he was thinking. She laughed.

 

“She also has both arms all tatted up now,” Jisoo said. “And she has an industrial piercing. And she now works for the school district.”

 

Jinyoung laughed. Amusing. “She used to scare me back in high school,” he said.

 

“She’s actually pretty cool,” Jisoo said. “I always sort of wanted to be friends with her, but I thought she was hard to approach. But we’ve been hanging out a lot lately, and she’s chill. You’d like her.”

 

He smirked. That was _just_ like Jisoo to make friends with the loners and the nerds and the other weirdos. In fact, he happened to be the _first_ weirdo she befriended. He wondered if she could be friends with Minji, too.

 

“Anyway,” Jisoo said. “She has a really cool summer planned out for everyone interested.”

 

Jinyoung nodded. “Are _you_ going?” he asked.

 

She had been asking herself that question. A year or two ago, she might have thought this was lame. But tonight she felt differently. 

 

“Yeah. I think so,” she said.

 

Jinyoung nodded again, looking content with her answer. Then they were silent again, and Jinyoung was staring at her like he knew that that wasn’t all she came here to say. Jisoo chewed on the inside of her cheek. She didn’t come here with a script to stick to and she didn’t have enough time on the drive over to plan one. So she sucked in a breath and decided to just speak candidly to him. The way she always used to.

 

“Jinyoung, I know that it’s been a while since we last talked,” she began. Jinyoung folded up the flyer and gave her his undivided attention.

 

“And I know that I was totally shit at keeping in touch all these years,” she continued.

 

Jinyoung’s eyes flicked down to his shoes and then back up at her. “Yeah, how about that?” he said. “Why did you stop talking to me?”

 

She was suddenly overcome with shame all over again.

 

“I… I don’t know,” Jisoo said. “Things just got so crazy when I got to Los Angeles. I got swept up in all of it, I barely had time to even think about my old life.”

 

Jinyoung flinched inwardly. Jisoo let out a deep breath.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The point is, I came here to say that, if you want, I still want to be friends.”

 

His eyes widened.

 

“Things don’t have to be different,” Jisoo continued. “We can go back to how we were before. A lot of time has passed. You got taller and got nicer hair, and me, I turned into even more of a loser, but I still feel like at their core, people don’t really change. We could pick up where we left off.”

 

Of course, she didn’t mean exactly where they left off. Because technically, they left off with Jisoo running away from him after kissing him. It made perfect sense to her why their friendship turned stale and cold after a parting like that, but she didn’t want to bring that up again. 

 

Jinyoung wasn’t entirely satisfied. He knew Jisoo. He knew that there was more to those five years she spent ignoring him than she let on. If this encounter had happened three or four years earlier, he probably would have been pissed at her. But at this point, he was just happy to see her, happy that she was talking to him again, happy that she still wanted him in her life. 

 

That was friends did for each other, after all. Overlook each other’s mistakes. 

 

“Okay,” he said gently. “Sure.”

 

Jisoo felt so relieved. She let out a long, deep sigh, and her posture relaxed. She smiled. 

 

“Thank you,” she said. Jisoo wasn’t sure what to do at this point. Should she hug him? Should they shake hands? What was next? Jinyoung looked like he was wondering the same thing. They both shifted their weight from one leg to the other, and then Jinyoung broke the silence by clearing his throat.

 

“So,” he said. “Since we’re… ‘picking up where we left off’…”

 

Jisoo leaned forward a little, anticipating what he would say next. He smirked and he looked up at her.

 

“You know,” he said. “I don’t think you ever returned my Nintendo DS before you went to LA.”

 

Jisoo frowned.


	6. Eponine

 

The event was well underway by the time Jisoo finally made it back from a quick run to the nearest grocer to pick up some more cheese and crackers. The old gym still smelled by varnish, though it was slightly masked by the scent of sandalwood. Jennie had purchased an air freshener. She was very detailed, Jisoo noticed.

 

The decor was standard Jennie fare: black bar tables with rose centerpieces that were so red they were almost burgundy. A DJ was playing the Top 40. The lights had been dimmed and there was a sign that had “Welcome Class of 2012” written in a medieval-looking font.

 

About 250 people graduated from their high school that year, and there looked to be about 40 or 50 people gathered in the gym tonight. All things considered, it was a pretty good number.

 

Jisoo saw Jennie rushing up to her in a blue velvet mini dress. Her hair was done up in a bun with a chopstick. Jisoo herself had opted to go more casual with a taupe t-shirt dress, black flats, and she kept her hair loose.

 

“There you are!” Jennie said. “Get the crackers over to the table. These people are going through the hors-d'oeuvres like they haven’t eaten in half a decade!”

 

She reached over and grabbed one of the bags from Jisoo and ushered her over to the food table. Jisoo took a look around the gym meanwhile, thinking about how weird it was to see so many familiar people in one place. 

 

“Nice turnout,” Jisoo commented to Jennie as they laid the crackers and cheese out. “So, who’s here?”

 

“I don’t know,” Jennie said, arranging the cracker platter so that it was at a perfect right angle with the edge of the table. “People, I guess. I saw Kim Doyoung, Jackson Wang, Im Nayeon, Mark Tuan, your boy, Bobby RSVP’d but I guess he isn’t here yet. You know, our classmates.”

 

Jisoo flicked. “Your boy, Bobby” was a phrase that Jackson had coined to tease her. Yeah, she crushed on him, but come on now, that must have been six or seven years ago. Never underestimate the staying power of alliteration, she supposed.

 

“What about Jinyoung? Is he here yet?” Jisoo asked. 

 

Jennie turned and was about to tell Jisoo that no, she hadn’t spotted Jinyoung yet, but it was that exact moment that Jennie saw the aforementioned boy walk in. Jennie cleared her throat and then gestured at the door with a nod. Jisoo looked over and saw them. 

 

Jinyoung was wearing a dark blue button-up that was rolled at the sleeves and tucked into dark gray trousers. 

 

 _When the hell did he get so good at fashion?_ Jisoo wondered. 

 

Even when her feelings for Jinyoung were at their most intense, Jisoo hadn’t thought him especially handsome, but then again, it was never his appearance that made her fall in love in the first place. She would never have thought that the skinny eighteen-year-old boy with the narrow shoulders and unruly hair would turn into this… Hollywood leading man.

 

He was arm in arm with Minji, who was wearing a wine-colored romper and lipstick in a matching shade. A thought stabbed her: what a good-looking couple they made. If Jinyoung was the leading man in a romance, she supposed that made Minji the leading lady and herself, the poor, pining, unlucky best friend. 

 

The Eponine to their Marius and Cosette.

 

But she shoved those poisonous thoughts away. Her best friend was back in town, goddammit, and she was not going to let this silly, dead, old crush drive them apart again. Jisoo put on a smile as Jinyoung led Minji over to her.

 

“Hey, you guys made it,” Jisoo said. She looked over at Minji. “So, the last time we met wasn’t really ideal. Is your phone okay?”

 

“She was texting with it the whole ride over here,” Jinyoung said. “So I think it should be fine.”

 

Minji pressed her lips into a thin line. “It’s just a phone,” she said flatly, then smiled. “So. You helped put together this little… thing.”

 

She looked around, taking in the black decor, the medieval font, the dark red roses. Jinyoung looked around, too, but he looked a bit more amused.

 

“I’m gonna go ahead and guess that Jennie was in charge of decor,” he said, laughing.

 

“She does have a flair for it,” Jisoo said. “I’m thinking she missed her calling. What do you think? Jennie Kim, interior decorator?”

 

“Do you think she’d travel for work?” Jinyoung said. “She can do my apartment when I move to New York.”

 

“ _Our_ apartment, babe,” Minji said, playfully hitting his chest. That little detail caught Jisoo’s attention.

 

“New York?” she asked. 

 

“Oh, yeah,” Minji said, perking up all of a sudden at the mention of New York. “Jinyoung’s been promoted _and_ transferred. Father’s firm just opened up a branch in Manhattan and is looking for talented young accountants to join him there. I just sort of threw his name into the conversation.”

 

Jisoo actually was impressed. By the promotion, of course, but also that upstanding citizen Park Jinyoung had actually used nepotism to land it. And that he was an accountant. She smirked, looking between Minji and Jinyoung.

 

Jinyoung modestly looked at the ground as his girlfriend bragged about the promotion. Jennie beckoned them over to the open bar to get some drinks. It was, after all, meant to be a cocktail mixer. Jennie ordered a cosmopolitan, but then she downed the drink and then moved on, saying that she had a bone to pick with the DJ. That left Jisoo alone with Minji and Jinyoung again. 

 

“Did you really just ask for a glass of ice water and a lemon wedge?” Jinyoung asked Minji. “At a cocktail mixer?”

 

He was just teasing her of course.

 

“Your sister’s wedding is coming up, and I’m not having my stomach poke out,” Minji said. “You know that dress is impossible to squeeze into.”

 

Jinyoung put his hands up, surrendering. “You’re right,” he said.

 

“Anyway, what are _you_ drinking?” Minji said, grabbing the black bottle that was in Jinyoung’s hand. “A Guinness?”

 

“Which is decidedly also not a cocktail,” Jisoo said, joining in. She looked over at Minji and tried to give her a sisterly smile, but Minji was still raising her brows at Jinyoung.

 

“You know these things have like 500 calories, don’t you?” Minji said. “The wedding is just weeks away and you already got fitted for a tux. You really want a beer gut when your sister gets married?”

 

“Actually,” Jisoo said, chiming in. “A 12 ounce Guinness has 125 calories, which is actually just 15 more than, say, a Bud Light. Most of the calories in beer come from the actual alcohol, and most brands are around 5% ABV, but Guinness is just 4.2. So less alcohol, fewer calories. And, anyway, it would take years of heavy drinking to develop a beer gut.”

 

Minji blinked at her for a good five seconds until Jinyoung burst out laughing.

 

“I forgot,” he said. “Professor. Do you remember when you were trying to show me how experts taste beer? You did that weird gurgling thing and accidentally spit it out all over your lap?”

 

Jisoo facepalmed. Yes, she remembered that. 

 

“Let’s not revive that memory,” she said, laughing. Jinyoung slid his bottle of Guinness over to her.

 

“You should show Minji,” he said, smiling expectantly. Jisoo shook her head.

 

“No!” she said. “There are people here!”

 

“So, then show them, too,” he said. “You bailed on my party and never got to show them, so this is pretty long overdue, actually.”

 

“What are you talking about?” Minji said, narrowing her eyes at him. 

 

“Believe it or not, Minji,” Jinyoung said. “But Jisoo is our class beer representative. She even watched a video on YouTube about how to taste beer so that you can draw out all the flavors. Right?”

 

“What am I, your show pony?” Jisoo joked, but she grabbed the bottle anyway and took a sip. Then, with the liquid still in her mouth, she pursed her lips and tried to suck in a little air, making a gurgling noise. Except this time, it didn’t spill out of her mouth and she really was able to taste it a little better.

 

“Ha!” she said after swallowing. “It worked that time!”

 

Jinyoung shook his head, disappointed. “Yeah, well, you probably had five years to practice it.”

 

Jisoo shook her head at him. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

 

Their eyes met across the bar table, but the look they shared was no passing glance. Jisoo’s memory traveled back to that evening by the docks, where they sat side by side sampling different alcohol brands on his eighteenth birthday. When she kissed him as the sun set, and then everything changed. Jisoo swallowed. One look at his eyes and she could tell he was remembering it, too. And Minji was watching the two of them watching each other.

 

The moment was interrupted by feedback on the DJ’s microphone. Everyone looked to the front of the gym and saw Jennie taking the stand. 

 

“Hey, everyone look over here,” she said. The music cut out, but everyone was still chattering. An amused smile spread on Jinyoung’s face.

 

“Jennie Kim,” he said, still unable to believe that she was actually working for the school district now. 

 

“Hey, guys,” Jennie said, tapping the mic. She growled in frustration. “Sex!”

 

As soon as she shouted that, everyone turned and gave her a funny look.

 

“Okay, now that I have your attention,” Jennie said. “I’m Jennie Kim, you guys might remember me as that girl who made voodoo dolls of everyone in the class. Anyway, thanks for coming out tonight. Seriously.”

 

She held up a white box. “This is an iPad,” she said. “You can win it, but first you have to participate in this activity that I made up for class reunion bonding time. It’s a scavenger hunt.”

 

A murmur spread through the crowd. Jinyoung raised his brows. A scavenger hunt. It sounded interesting. 

 

“All you have to do is download this app,” Jennie said, pulling out her smartphone and pointing to an app. “Download it, sign in, and there are QR codes all around the school. Find them, scan them, follow the instructions, and when you finish, hit the ‘finish’ button, and then come collect your prize. You all have an hour.”

 

Jisoo whistled. “Wow, that actually sounds complicated.”

 

“She’s very detailed,” Jinyoung said, agreeing. 

 

“And y’all better download this stupid app,” Jennie said. “Because I spent a lot of money printing these QR codes and went on two bad dates with the app developer to organize this activity for you. Alright? The game starts now!”

 

People started whipping out their phones searching for the app. Jisoo wasn’t sure she wanted to participate, but she was curious about Jennie’s app. Curious about those two bad dates, too, but maybe that was a story for another time. 

 

“Do you wanna do it?” Jinyoung asked of his two female companions. “It could be fun.”

 

“I’ll pass,” Minji said. Jinyoung looked disappointed. “What? Running around a _high school_ at night just to win an iPad that I already have doesn’t sound like my idea of fun. Let’s just stay here.”

 

“I think I might do it,” Jisoo said, finally downloading the app and getting the chance to scroll through it. It did look very sophisticated and organized. She was curious to see is Jennie’s efforts would pay off. Plus, she hadn’t been inside their high school in a long time. That sounded somewhat appealing, too.

 

Jisoo looked at Jinyoung, and he looked between her and Minji. She gave him a sad smile and then ran off with the rest of their classmates to look for QR codes.

 

Jinyoung looked at Minji, who didn’t look like she was going to give in. He knew better than to force Minji to do anything that she wasn’t on board with. She had already taken out her cellphone and was texting again. He sighed.

 

“I’m gonna do the scavenger hunt, alright, babe?” he said. “I’ll be back in an hour. If you need me, just call.”

 

He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her temple. Minji just stood there, still looking down at her phone. Jinyoung lingered for a second or two, thinking that she might change her mind and want to come with him. But she didn’t. So he sighed and then turned and followed after Jisoo.


	7. About Right

****“So,” Jisoo said, fidgeting with her hands behind her back. “You’re moving to New York?”

 

Jinyoung was running the flashlight on his phone along the wall of the dim hallway. All the doors of the classrooms had been unlocked, meaning that Jennie must have hidden some QR codes in them. The desks had been switched out for newer ones, though, so it was an odd mix of familiar and unfamiliar.

 

“What?” Jinyoung said, turning to her. “Oh, yeah. At the end of the summer. Shortly after the wedding, I guess.”

 

Jisoo walked alongside him. She looked at the new art club’s artwork on the walls of the school. Flyers announced club sign up days and baseball games. Photos of unfamiliar teenagers lined the walls. It was such a strange feeling, like coming home and finding out that a stranger had been living in it all this time.

 

“You must be really excited,” Jisoo said. Jinyoung chuckled lightly.

 

“Something like that,” he said, switching the flashlight to his other hand. “Minji called it a promotion, but it really feels more like a lateral move to me. My new position has basically the same pay and the same responsibilities. Only thing different is the location and title.”

 

He wasn’t looking for a promotion in the first place. Minji had thrown his name in for consideration without his prior consultation. The offer came to him so quickly, and he couldn’t find the courage to say no to his boss, his girlfriend’s father.

 

“I’m jealous,” Jisoo said, picturing Times Square and Central Park. Jinyoung scoffed.

 

“What do you mean?” he said, elbowing her. “You got to live in Hollywood for five years.”

 

“You mean I got to barely get by in Hollywood for five years,” she said. She shone her own flashlight on the ceiling.

 

“Most of the time, I was out of a job,” she said, recalling those dark days. “Scraping around for pennies so I could eat and begging for work. You’ve already got a job in New York, so you’re all set. And you have a girlfriend. So of course, I’m jealous.”

 

Jinyoung pressed his lips into a line. 

 

“To be honest, I’m not exactly sure about New York,” he said. 

 

New York was really all Minji’s idea. She had her heart set on it, and as her boyfriend, he felt obligated to be excited, too. But the awful truth was that he wasn’t. Not really. He couldn’t voice this aloud to Minji for fear that he would dampen her spirits. But he felt freer to think and feel as he pleased with Jisoo.

 

“But then again,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s normal to feel uncertain right before you make a big move, right?”

 

His words made Jisoo remember the way _she_ felt right before skipping town. Of course, she had been nervous. Nervous the night before, nervous on the plane, and nervous when she stepped off at LAX. But that wasn’t because she was going somewhere far away. That had been because she was scared that she’d ruined their friendship.

 

She cleared her throat and chose to move on to another topic.

 

“Speaking of big moves,” Jisoo said. “Boyoung Unni is getting married. What’s her fiancee like?”

 

Jinyoung paused to open up a cabinet against the wall. No QR codes yet. They could hear others running up and down the stairwell. Earlier, they had run into Mark and Jaebum, both of whom had already found four and were in the lead, according to the scoreboard on the app.

 

“He’s Japanese,” Jinyoung said, speaking of his sister’s beau. “Works in sports medicine. They met at a tae kwon do tournament three years ago, her team had a competition in Hokkaido. He was the doctor on duty. She said that she had just finished winning a match and he came up to her and just asked her out.” 

 

Amazing. “Just like that?” Jisoo asked. He nodded.

 

“And, just so you know,” he said, turning to her. “She had no hair at this point. She shaved her head, she was completely bald. So—”

 

“So it was true love?”

 

“Must be. I’m not just saying this because I’m the little brother, but she was _not_ pretty when she was bald. But Yoshiki is pretty unconventional, too. They vibe well together.”

 

Jisoo pictured Jinyoung’s older sister. Boyoung had always danced to the beat of her own drum. She was a tae kwon do champion and was always writing letters to the mayor, asking him to pass a law that would make it illegal to develop the swampy plot of land near the beach because it was home to a rare native species of toad. But hers and her fiancee’s love story gave Jisoo a bit of hope. If Boyoung could find love somewhere, maybe Jisoo could, too. Some other boy that she could love second most in the world.

 

“That sounds about right,” Jisoo said, laughing. “Well, I guess if she’s happy, that’s all that matters. What about Miyoung Unni? What’s she up to? Is _she_ married yet?”

 

“I’m pretty sure she has a girlfriend back in Seoul,” Jinyoung explained as they started to climb up a flight of stairs. “But for some reason, she doesn’t want us to meet her.” 

 

Odd, Jisoo thought. “What about her master’s degree? Did she ever get it?”

 

“She got it,” Jinyoung said. They reached a landing. “She’s a Ph.D candidate now at the same university.”

 

“Oh, wow,” Jisoo said, though, in retrospect, she wasn’t the least bit surprised. Miyoung Unni was terribly clever. “What’s she studying?”

 

“Dead languages,” Jinyoung said with a smirk. Jisoo shook her head. She should have known.

 

“That also sounds about right.”

 

When they got to the top of stairs, they reached a set of double doors. Jinyoung pushed them open and was hit by a strong gust of wind. When they stepped out, they found themselves on the roof. 

 

Jisoo had never particularly thought of her hometown as beautiful. It was what it was. Some buildings there, houses here, a town square in the middle, a 50’s themed diner and a movie theater, the docks to the west. But up on the roof of their high school, with the city lights reflecting the blanket of stars in the blue velvet sky, that was the word that came to her.

 

“Beautiful,” she said aloud. Jinyoung smiled.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “Sounds about right.”

 

Jisoo watched his back as he started looking around the roof for QR codes. They were having the worst luck with this scavenger hunt. 

 

“You know what sounds about… wrong, though?” she said as they made their rounds.

 

Jinyoung paused. “What?”

 

She hesitated for a minute. “You’re an _accountant_?” 

 

Jinyoung looked slightly taken aback. _Oh, shit_ , she thought.

 

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it like that. Fuck. That was offensive. Why did I say that? I’m sorry.”

 

“No, it’s okay,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “It feels that way sometimes.”

 

She remembered. He used to spend lunchtime in the music room, practicing scales on the piano or humming along to made-up melodies. He had a laptop full of originally composed music. They once dreamed of having a house in the hills of Hollywood where he would write angry songs about his parents.

 

“I thought you wanted to produce music,” Jisoo said, taking a step toward him. Jinyoung looked out at the view and shrugged.

 

“I did,” he said. When he volunteered no other information, Jisoo pressed on.

 

“So what happened?”

 

A lot of things happened, Jinyoung thought. He, too, never really pictured his life turning out this way. It wasn’t bad, exactly, but it was different from the vision he had growing up. He wasn’t sure when he starting losing his handle on his life, when he stopped caring about what he wanted.

 

“I got intimidated, I guess,” he said. “I wanted to do recording arts as my major in college, but I kept thinking: what if it doesn’t work out? It’s a nice dream, but it’s not sensible, you know? Accounting was sensible. I wasn’t terrible at math and I’d been around my dad’s business long enough to know more than a bit about it. So I went for it.”

 

Jisoo nodded. He laughed.

 

“You’re disappointed in me,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew you would be. You think I sold out.”

 

Jinyoung took a seat on a wooden bench, and Jisoo laughed as she lowered herself onto it, sitting next to him.

 

“I’m hardly in a position to be disappointed in you,” she said. “I’m an even bigger disappointment than you. At least you found a way to make money off your disappointment.”

 

He laughed again. Jisoo was looking out at their hometown with an unreadable expression on her face. Jinyoung stared at her profile. He had missed this view. Jisoo turned her head and met his gaze, smiling gently.

 

“This is nice,” she said.

 

“What is?” he asked.

 

“Talking,” she said. “It’s been a while. I forgot what it feels like.”

 

It did feel nice. Of course, Jinyoung was able to talk to his other friends and to Minji and to his family. But it wasn’t anything like talking to Jisoo. She knew so much about him. Sometimes he got the feeling that she understood his thoughts and feelings even better than he. Two hours of complete silence with Jisoo sometimes felt even more communicative than two hours of speaking to anyone else. 

 

But five years of _her_ silence was something else.

 

“We still have a lot to talk about, Jisoo,” he said softly. Jisoo nodded. She knew. She could feel it, the weight of all the conversations that they needed to have, the burden of all the unspoken words. She took a deep breath and was about to launch into the story of her time in Los Angeles, but then something caught her eye. 

 

On the ground, in the shadow of the moonlight, there was dark, flapping square. Jisoo turned around and saw that on the pole above the small building from where they emerged, there was a QR code.

 

“Jinyoung, look!” she pushed herself off the bench and then point at the piece of paper that was flapping in the wind, connected by a zip-tie to a short pole. Jinyoung looked over and smirked.

 

“Let’s go,” he said. They circled the door shed and tried to find a way to get up on top of it to snap a picture of the code. The bench was too heavy to move. There wasn’t anything else they could climb on, and it was too tall for Jinyoung to jump on it. 

 

Jisoo and Jinyoung looked at each other, scratching their heads. How the hell did Jennie get it up there in the first place?

 

“You’re gonna have to give me a boost,” Jinyoung said. Jisoo guffawed.

 

“What?” she said. “There’s no way! You’ve gotta weigh like at least 150 pounds, I can’t just ‘give you a boost.’ What do I look like, the Hulk?”

 

“But you can’t climb up there in a dress,” he countered.

 

“Says who?” Jisoo said. Jinyoung was about to protest, but she was already walking toward the wall and beckoning him over. Rather than argue, Jinyoung just shook his head and leaned against the wall, assuming the boosting position. Jisoo positioned her hands on his shoulders and carefully placed her foot into his interlocked fingers.

 

“Alright, on three—”

 

“No funny business,” Jisoo said, glaring at him. Jinyoung raised one brow.

 

“Who do you think I am?” he said. “On three. One, two—”

 

“Wait, _on_ three or after three?” 

 

“ _On_ three. Okay. One, two, three.”

 

Jisoo hopped up just as Jinyoung lifted her foot. She climbed up against the wall, managing to get her elbows over the edge. Jinyoung pushed her up further and as soon as her center of gravity was over the edge, Jisoo rolled over on top of the shed. Jinyoung laughed, unable to believe that that actually worked.

 

“I’m up!” Jisoo stood on the roof above the stairwell and walked slowly up to the pole. It wasn’t very tall, so she was able to reach up and tear the QR code from the zip tie. Then, she snapped a picture of it with the app.

 

“You got it?” Jinyoung asked. “I’ll give you my phone. Take a picture of it with mine, too.”

 

Jisoo waited for the app to load, but by the time the picture had been uploaded, a message flashed at her. She guffawed.

 

“What the hell?” Jisoo said.

 

“What?” Jinyoung called up. “What happened?”

 

“It says that the prize was already claimed!” Jisoo said, jaw dropping. “Mark Tuan won. Goddammit, Mark wins everything. Scavenger hunts, relay games, genetic lotteries.”

 

“So, basically,” Jinyoung said, putting his hands on his hips. “You climbed up there for nothing.”

 

Jisoo shrugged. “We could always steal it from him.”

 

Jinyoung laughed. Jisoo crumpled up the QR code and dropped it to the ground. Then she lowered herself to her knees and slowly inched back to the edge. 

 

“Hey,” Jisoo called. “What are you doing? Aren’t you going to help me down?”

 

She swung one of her legs over, but as she did, the wind caught the hem of her dress and made it flap open. Jisoo immediately pinned it down with her hand. Getting up onto the door shed had been easy enough, but she could see that it would be tougher to get down without doing anything unladylike. Jinyoung was starting to realize the problem, too.

 

“I did tell you you couldn’t do it in a dress,” he said. 

 

Jisoo thought for a minute. “Bring the bench over here.”

 

“If it was too heavy for the both of us, what makes you think I can move it on my own?” Jinyoung said. He sighed and walked over to the wall. “It’s fine, just lower yourself down, I’ll guide you.”

 

Jisoo sighed, supposing there was really no way to avoid it. She turned over and started to lower herself down, inch by inch, holding on with her arms. 

 

“You’re almost there,” he said. “Just lower yourself some more and you could probably jump it.”

 

Jinyoung stood by, making sure she got down safely, but as she was doing so, the hem of her dress started to rise up. 

 

His cheeks colored. He thought he was being helpful by pinching the hem and pulling it down to cover her. But Jisoo just got startled when she felt his hand tugging on the back of her dress, causing her to let go. 

 

She still had a long way to fall, so Jinyoung acted fast, grabbing her around the middle. But then all her weight fell on him, knocking him over and pinning him to the ground.

 


	8. Heart and Soul

****The doctor shone a light at Jinyoung’s eyes and instructed him to keep his eye on his finger.

 

As Jisoo was climbing down from the door shed, she lost her grip and fell. Jinyoung was fast enough to catch her, but the suddenness of the action had made him lose his balance. He managed to break Jisoo’s fall, but there was nothing but concrete to break his. He hit his head against the ground and passed out.

 

Jisoo had been frantic. She shook him and held his face and called out his name until he started regaining consciousness. He’d only been out for about thirty seconds, and the sharp pain in the back of his head had started to subside by the time Jisoo led him back to the gym and told Minji what happen.

 

He told them that he felt fine, but both girls insisted that he see a doctor in case he had a concussion.

 

So now he was sitting on the examination table while Dr. Kwon did a few tests.

 

“Do you know what day it is today?” the doctor asked.

 

“It’s Friday,” Jinyoung answered.

 

“What year is it?”

 

“2017,” he looked left as the doctor moved his finger.

 

“Do you know where you are?”

 

“Doctor’s office,” Jinyoung said. “Kwon Jung Ho, M.D.”

 

He turned the flashlight off. Jinyoung blinked, getting his sight accustomed to the white lighting in the doctor’s office once more. Minji was sitting in a chair by the sink, patiently waiting for news about his condition. Jisoo was on leaning on the other end of the examination table, doing the same.

 

“Well?” Jisoo asked. “Yea or nay on the concussion?”

 

The doctor discarded his rubber gloves. “I don’t think you have a concussion, Jinyoung,” said the doctor. Jinyoung let out a sigh of relief, as did Jisoo and Minji.

 

“And you said your head doesn’t hurt too much, right?” asked the doctor. Jinyoung nodded. “That’s a good sign. Again, I don’t think the injury is very serious, and you definitely don’t need to stay overnight. Although…”

 

The doctor turned to Jisoo. “You should probably wake him up a couple times tonight,” Dr. Kwon said to her. “Every couple of hours. Ask him a few questions, make sure he’s lucid. Just to be safe.”

 

Jisoo gave the doctor a slightly horrified look. Did the doctor think that _she_ was going to—?

 

“Oh, no no no,” Jisoo said, waving her hands frantically. “We’re not—I’m not—actually, Minji is his girlfriend.”

 

She gestured over to Minji, the girl who was actually going to be sleeping with him tonight and, therefore, should probably be in charge of the waking every couple hours, too. The doctor, flustered, looked between the two girls.

 

“Oh,” he said, turning to Minji. “My apologies. Well, you heard what I said, didn’t you? Every couple of hours.”

 

Minji nodded. There was a strained, polite smile on her face. Jinyoung jumped down from the examination table.

 

“So am I free to go?” he asked.

 

After being given the go-ahead to leave, the three of them made their way over to their respective cars. Minji helped Jinyoung into the passenger seat of his Lexus and Jisoo went back to her mother’s sedan. She had offered to see them back safely to the Parks’ house, but Minji and Jinyoung insisted that they’d be fine. So they bid their goodbyes there.

 

By the time Jisoo made it back to her house, her parents and her grandfather were already abed. She went into her own bedroom, changed into comfortable clothing, and immediately texted Jennie to find out if she was able to recruit someone’s help to dismantle the decorations in the gym.

 

The excitement of the evening had wiped out Jisoo’s energy, but she couldn’t bring herself to fall asleep. She lay on her mattress and stared up at the exposed wooden beams of her house’s ceiling, started counting the lines along the wood.

 

If she’d had two or three shots of espresso, her heart couldn’t pound any harder.

 

Her mind took her back a few hours, back to that moment Jinyoung hit his head and lost consciousness. At first, she was going to chew him out for touching her ass, but then she saw that he was unresponsive, and she couldn’t breathe. The stark terror of that moment could have stopped her heart.

 

Jisoo sat up in bed. She checked the clock on the floor beside her pillow and saw that it was two in the morning.

 

She guessed that Jinyoung and Minji must have made it back around eleven and probably went straight to bed. Jisoo wondered what the possibility was that Minji had already woken him up and asked him what the date was. A few hours would have passed by now.

 

Jisoo fell back against her pillow. _She’s probably already woken him_ , she thought. _He’ll be fine, the doctor said it wasn’t that bad_.

 

With that thought, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Not two minutes later, she jumped back out of bed, grabbed her phone from its charging station, and then left her bedroom. Jisoo tiptoed down the hall and slid open the door leading to the backyard.

 

Jinyoung’s window was dark, which didn’t surprise her. It was nearly 3 am after all. Still, she reached over to the light switch, signaled twice, and then waited.

 

No response. She unlocked her phone and dialed his number.

 

 

 

 

 

Jinyoung was pulled out of the deep recesses of slumber when his phone started vibrating. His eyes flung open and he hurried reached for the device, which was charging on his nightstand. Beside him, Minji was still asleep, and he didn’t want to wake her. He was about to ignore the call altogether, but he saw that it was from Jisoo.

 

He contemplated declining the call for now and calling her back in the morning. But before he could make the more sensible decision, his thumb was already instinctively reaching to answer. He picked up and then swung his legs over the bed to take the call in the corridor outside his room.

 

“Hello?” he said, his voice groggy.

 

“Hey,” said Jisoo on the other line. Compared to his, her voice sounded clear. “Are you up?”

 

Jinyoung closed the door to his room, not wanting to disturb Minji. “Well, I am now.”

 

He heard her sigh. With relief?

 

“I’m sorry,” she said. He could hear crickets in the background of her call. “Minji’s probably woken you up like a dozen times by now, I was just worried.”

 

Minji hadn’t woken him yet, actually. He supposed she was going to do it a little later, but Jisoo’s phone call happened to beat her to it.

 

“Don’t be,” Jinyoung said, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall. “The doctor said it was wasn’t serious.”

 

“Yeah, I know, but…” she paused for a breath. “You…you really scared me back there. Losing consciousness like that.”

 

He did remember the look of panic on her face when he finally started waking again up on the roof. He was still a little too hazy back then to give it much thought, but now he supposed that that must have given her quite a fright. He would have been, too, had the roles been reversed.

 

“I’m… sorry,” he said carefully, then decided to inject a bit of humor, to lighten things up, make her feel more at ease: “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

 

She gave a weak laugh in response.

 

“Anyway, I just called because I wanted to—oh, I should ask you questions to make sure you’re lucid. Do you know where you are right now?”

 

“I’m home,” he looked up and down the hallway again, as if to make sure.

 

“Okay, good,” Jisoo said. “Yeah, so I just called because—well, you know how I am, I overthink things and I don’t do well when I let bad thoughts sit and fester and I was—”

 

“Let me guess: festering?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Despite his 3 am grogginess, he felt touched by her concern.

 

“I’m fine, Jisoo,” he said confidently, reassuring her. “It’s a minor injury.”

 

“I know,” Jisoo said. “But it was a hard fall, and I know what a weakling you are.”

 

He snorted. “Ye of little faith.”

 

She responded with another weak laugh. “Go back to bed. Sorry I woke you.”

 

“Goodnight.”

 

Jinyoung ended the call and then went back into his bedroom. Minji hadn’t stirred through the whole conversation, and he tried his best to get back into bed as quietly as he could. His eyes closed easily and his heart found its steady rhythm once more. Jisoo’s voice was the last thing he heard before falling back asleep, and the sound of it echoed in his dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

“Is it too much to ask,” Jisoo’s mother said. “For _one_ decent rehearsal?” She was sitting, defeated, at the piano in the hall, crossing her arms and addressing the third-grade cast of the summer program.

 

Opening night was in just a few weeks, but the children weren’t learning their lines and nobody knew their cues. Musical numbers? Forget it.

 

Jisoo stood by, arms crossed and chewing on her bottom lip. She hadn’t been as active in helping the children (she mostly stayed out of the way while her domineering mother handled things), but she, too, was starting to feel nervous.

 

The kids exchanged glances, their blank expressions standing in for conversations they couldn’t have in front of the director.

 

“Mrs. Kim?” said one little girl. “Can we take a break?”

 

“No, we can’t,” said Jisoo’s mother. “We’re running out of time and we haven’t gone through the entire thing at least once without problems.”

 

“Mom,” Jisoo said. “They _are_ just kids, and they’ve been doing this for like an hour now. Maybe a break will do them some good?”

 

Her mother looked a little horrified at the suggestion, but before she had the chance to argue, her phone started to ring. “Oh goodness, it’s your father,” Mrs. Kim said. She sighed. “Alright, we’ll take a forty-minute break. How’s that? Forty-minute break everyone! Go get some snacks or some water, use the bathroom, we’ll pick up on Act 2 when we get back!”

 

She stood from the piano as she took the call. “Hello? Honey? No, the TV needs to be on HDMI 3 if you want to watch Hulu.”

 

As soon as she was out of the hall, the children all let out a collective sigh. They started coming down from the stage, heading out to the patio or stepping out in groups of two or three to go off in search of snacks. Jisoo swung her arms around, not quite sure what to do with the group of ten or so who decided to stay behind.

 

“I hate this,” said one of the boys to another. Jisoo crinkled her brow at him.

 

“Why?” she asked.

 

The boys looked at each other, probably not anticipating that she was going hear them, let alone answer them. Jisoo stopped pacing and stood in front of the children.

 

“Sorry,” the boy whispered.

 

“No,” Jisoo said. “Tell me why you hate it?”

 

They looked like they weren’t expecting that, either. They were used to Mrs. Kim barking directions at them and getting frustrated when they didn’t do something right. It occurred to them that they eventually just stopped having things to say.

 

“Because I have to sing and dance,” said the little boy. “I’m not even good at singing or dancing.”

 

Jisoo looked unfazed. “That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to be.”

 

The boy snorted. “But this is a _musical_ ,” he said. “So, you kind of _have_ to be good at singing and dancing. I’m a fail.”

 

He did have a point there, but Jisoo wasn’t much good at singing nor dancing at their age, either, but it never stopped her from being excited to be in the summer program. It pained her that these kids hated the very thing that led her to love acting in the first place. She crossed her arms.

 

“I’m not good at singing or dancing,” Jisoo said. “But I still do it. Anyway, being good at it isn’t the point, that’s not the point of theater. You know what the point of theater is?”

 

The kids all exchanged confused looks again. Jisoo took a step closer.

 

“The point of theater,” Jisoo said. “Is to make the audience feel what you’re feeling. You guys are all kids and I’m more grown up than you, so let me tell you something about adults. We all have a _ton_ of repressed emotions.”

 

“What’s ‘repressed’?”

 

“It means you keep your emotions bottled up,” Jisoo said. “People bottle up their emotions all the time, and they come to the theater or they go to the movies or they read books or make music or whatever it is they do—they make art because it helps them express themselves. Their real selves. And it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, what matters is it’s out there.”

 

“But…” stuttered the young girl playing Dorothy. “If we’re pretending to be a character, how is that expressing your real self?”

 

Jisoo smirked, giddy at the opportunity to talk about acting.

 

“As the great Konstantin Stanislavsky said,” Jisoo said with a grand sweeping of her voice. “All action in theater needs to have inner justification. It needs to be logical. It needs to be coherent. And most importantly, it needs to be real.”

 

The children leaned forward, if not intrigued by Jisoo’s quoting of Stanislavsky, then intrigued by the way her persona seemed to change at the mere mention of him.

 

“You guys heard of method acting?” she asked. They shook their heads. “Stanislavsky is the guy who came up with it. Basically, what it means is that when you’re playing a character on stage, you let that character’s feelings and actions become your own, but you can’t do that unless you’ve felt or done those things, too.”

 

“Great,” said one of the boys sarcastically. “Where the hell are we supposed to find a Wizard of Oz to be able to play him?”

 

“No,” Jisoo said, kneeling so that she was at their level. “That doesn’t mean you have to have killed a witch or been to Oz. It just means that you have to take this role, which could be completely different from you, and find something similar. For example…”

 

Jisoo turned to the boy playing the Cowardly Lion.

 

“You’re obviously not a lion,” she said. “But lions are known for being brave, yet this lion is _not_ brave. How do you think that makes him feel?”

 

He widened his eyes, shocked to have been called out. “Uhh,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe, like, embarrassed? ‘Cause he’s a lion but he’s not brave like lions are supposed to?”

 

“Okay,” Jisoo said. “Now think of a time that you felt embarrassed because you didn’t meet somebody’s expectations.”

 

His eyes started darting around the room.

 

“It’s okay, you can tell us,” Jisoo said, glaring at the other boys and girls as if to swear them into secrecy. They all exchanged looks and tacitly agreed. The boy shrugged.

 

“Well,” he began, sheepishly. “I’m on the basketball team, so my friend said I should play NBA 2K17 on XBOX ‘cause I might be good at it, but I was really bad at it.”

 

“Okay! Great!” Jisoo said. “So, then you have some idea how the Cowardly Lion feels, right? So, you take that experience and when you’re playing the Lion on stage, just remember how being bad at NBA 2K17 made you feel and let that feeling guide your acting. So, you see…”

 

Jisoo stood again. “You can’t be a character unless you can be yourself, first.”

 

“But what about me?” asked the girl who played the Wicked Witch. “I’m not a witch. I can’t fly or do magic.”

 

Jisoo smirked.

 

“ _You_ ,” she said. “Are the most complicated, complex character in the entire show. Seriously, your character is so deep that she has a whole other musical dedicated entirely to her. It was nominated for 63 awards, including ten Tonys and one Grammy. You’re kind of a big deal, sis.”

 

Her eyes grew wide. Jisoo thought maybe that was the wrong thing to say. It might have put an undue amount of pressure on the poor girl. Other kids started speaking up, wondering how they, too, could get more connected to their roles. It would be tricky. Some of them didn’t have speaking roles at all, just dancing munchkins or talking trees. But it gave Jisoo the idea to let the kids do a few acting exercises and theater games, as a more fun, interactive way to approach theater and acting.

 

She had each of them choose a character, not necessarily one that was in the program. Then she had them act out a certain scene or situation, but they had to react as if they were the character. They weren’t always good, and a lot of times, the kids became frustrated. But Jisoo decided to treat it as progress. They were connecting with the theater in their own, new way. And so was she.

 

“Officer, I am a citizen of this country, and I know my rights!” Jisoo said. One of the munchkin boys had called her out into the scene. The situation was: woman gets pulled over by cop. Jisoo was the woman, he was the cop.

 

“Your reckless maneuvering has endangered the galaxy,” the boy said in an exaggeratedly deep, breathy voice. “I have no choice but to issue you a citation.”

 

“I’m not paying for this ticket!” Jisoo said, scoffing. “In fact, _you_ should be the one paying me! You made me skid off the road, and look! You cracked my iPhone 6 Plus!”

 

“You dare defy the Empire?” said munchkin boy in that same breathy voice. “You’ll face the consequences.” Then munchkin boy lifted his hand and made a squeezing gesture with his hand, directing it at Jisoo’s face.

 

It was at this point that Jinyoung walked in. He’d heard from people around town that Jisoo’s mother had been charged with directing the third grade summer program this year and that Jisoo was acting as assistant director. The summer days were passing by, and he was eager to spend as much time with his friend as he could.

 

He pushed the door to the hall open and walked in undetected, and apparently in the middle of some excitement. Jisoo was sitting on the ground with her hands positioned like she was driving a car, surrounded by a circle of children. There was a little boy in the circle too, and he was squeezing a ball of air in front of Jisoo’s face.

 

“What are you doing?” Jisoo said in a heady voice.

 

“You will pay this speeding ticket and not defy me,” the boy said, his voice airy and throaty.

 

“I’m pressing charges!” Jisoo said.

 

“No, you will pay this speeding ticket and not defy me,” he squeezed the air again. Jisoo’s face took on a blank expression.

 

“I will pay this speeding ticket and not defy you,” she said in a robotic, monotone voice. The little boy laughed.

 

“And you will pay me $20,” he said in his normal voice.

 

“Ha!” Jisoo said, pointing at him. “You broke character!”

 

“Damn it!” the boy said, and the children started clapping. Jisoo had a triumphant grin on her face as she stood and took a bow. When she straightened back up, she saw Jinyoung standing in the doorway, clapping along with the kids.

 

“Uh, guys?” Jisoo said, turning and addressing the kids again. “Okay, that’s enough for today. Good job, everyone! Break time, go actually get snacks and stuff.”

 

“Aww but it was almost the Joker and Pikachu to face off!”

 

Jisoo apologized again and dismissed the kids. She took their disappointment as a sign that they were actually enjoying the exercise, which was good news. She stepped around a couple of the kids and met Jinyoung about halfway, near her mother’s piano. His hair wasn’t styled like it usually was these days. It looked more like the way he wore it back then: tousled with an especially untamed fringe.

 

“Hey,” Jisoo said cheerfully.

 

“What was that all about?” he asked.

 

“Acting exercise,” Jisoo said, wiping the knees of her jeans. “I had them pick a character and play that role in an improvised scene.”

 

He smiled. “So what scene was that?”

 

“Woman gets stopped by cop,” Jisoo said. “I was the woman, Sanghyun was the cop. And I think the character he chose was Anakin Skywalker. The voice, you know.”

 

“So, that was him using the Force to make you pay your speeding ticket?” Jinyoung laughed. “Who were _you_ supposed to be?”

 

Jisoo raised her brows and laughed nervously. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Jinyoung produced a notebook that he was holding under his arm. Jisoo hadn’t noticed. The pages were slightly yellow and the cover was beaten and worn.

 

“I found this while I was digging around my room,” he said.

 

“What is it?”

 

In response, Jinyoung sat down on the bench in front of the piano. He opened the notebook up on the music rack, and Jisoo saw that it was full of musical bars and Jinyoung’s scribbling.

 

“It’s my old composition notebook,” he said, smiling mischievously. “Look at this one.”

 

He pointed to the top of the page, and Jisoo read the title: “Mr. Baek’s Cactus Head?”

 

“You don’t remember it?” he lifted the cover off the keys. For a minute, Jinyoung stared at the ivories and felt overwhelmed. It had been a solid four years since he last sat at a piano. He wasn’t able to bring one with him when he went away for college, and after he started working, there was no time to practice at all. It was hard to imagine that at one point, all he could think of doing with his life was playing the piano and making music.

 

“Oh my god,” Jisoo covered her mouth with her hand. “Is this the song we made up during finals week freshman year?”

 

It was their first year of high school, and the week of final exams was kicking their butt. In the middle of all the stress and overwhelming feelings, for some reason, they decided it was a good idea to not study and write a nonsense song venting their frustrations instead. Mr. Baek was their strict homeroom teacher whose hair was shaved so close to his head that the stiff little hairs made him look like a cactus. Jisoo came up with the lyrics, and Jinyoung set them to music.

 

“I don’t even remember how it goes anymore,” Jisoo said.

 

“Hang on, I’m trying to figure it out,” Jinyoung said, squinting at the music sheet, trying to remember all those sight reading lessons he had. Hesitantly, he started playing a slightly ragtime-y tune on his right hand. The chorus essentially repeated “Mr. Baek has a cactus head” over and over again.

 

“This is such a stupid song, wow,” Jisoo said, snorting. “Why did we write this? This is not even good music.”

 

“It’s actually pretty complex,” Jinyoung said, taking his fingers from the keys. “For two fourteen-year-olds. At least the music is. Lyrically, though—”

 

“Hey!” Jisoo said, protesting. “Don’t knock my lyrics. I was running on caffeine and Adderall at the time of writing that.”

 

Jinyoung laughed gently. Then he looked back down at the piano and ran his index finger over the keys. She could see that he missed it. Missed playing. It was in his eyes. It was in the way he touched the instrument.

 

“Do you remember how to play _anything_?” Jisoo asked.

 

He was quiet for a little bit, but when he looked up at her, he had a light smirk on his face. Jinyoung put both his hands on the piano, and he started playing the opening tune of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

 

Jisoo half laughed and half groaned.

 

Back when he was still coming over twice a week to receive lessons from her mother, this song was always on repeat. It was the first song he ever brought to Mrs. Kim, asking her to teach it to him. It was the first song he ever learned to play. Even after he had mastered it in three or four weeks, Mrs. Kim always made him play through his repertoire to start off each session, so the song was _always_ playing in the house. By the time Jinyoung graduated from lessons to independent study, Jisoo had grown sick of it.

 

Right now, though, she was just amused.

 

“Of course,” she said. “I should have known.”

 

“ _Just a small town girl_ ,” he started singing in a low voice. “ _Livin’ in a lonely world_.”

 

“This song will never not remind me of you,” Jisoo said.

 

Of course, Jisoo had had lessons, too. As the daughter of a piano virtuoso, it would have been impossible to grow up and not be taught a little of her mother’s instrument. She was never as dedicated as Jinyoung, though, and she hated practicing, so she never got to his level. There was at least one piece, though, that she still remembered.

 

“Move over,” Jisoo said, walking around the side of the piano. Jinyoung scooted to the right on the bench, and Jisoo took the left side of the instrument. “Do you remember this one?”

 

There were a lot of pieces Jinyoung didn’t remember, but the piece that Jisoo started playing was one that he did.

 

Heart and Soul. A piano duet.

 

Jisoo played the left hand section. Jinyoung put his right hand on the keys and waited to come in with the melody. He counted down the beats in his head, and then pushed down on one key—

 

“You came in too late!” Jisoo said. Jinyoung shook his head, embarrassed. He sped up his playing, trying to catch up with the beat.

 

Jisoo’s part was somewhat easier, being just a repetitive chord progression. She watched his hands in the corner of her eye, holding back her laughter every time he tripped up. It took him a couple of tries before he could get it right. Jinyoung let his brain take a back seat and let his body remind him what he forgot. His hands remembered the music even if he didn’t.

 

Jinyoung flashed his teeth when he smiled. A detail that didn’t escape Jisoo’s notice. Jinyoung had a number of different smiles, and she knew them all.

 

That one was his real one.


	9. Jinyoung That I Met

****“It’s just one evening,” Jinyoung said to Minji. They were in his Lexus and were on their way over to the Kims’ house, which meant he had just about five minutes to get his girlfriend back onto his side.

 

At the end of his and Jisoo’s piano duet in the rehearsal hall about a week ago, Mrs. Kim, his old piano tutor walked in and scolded him for neglecting to practice. Then, after a brief catching up, she invited Jinyoung over to their house for dinner the following weekend. Jinyoung had asked if he could bring his girlfriend.

 

“Just for a couple of hours,” Jinyoung said. “We’ve gotten dinner with a bunch of our friends before, it won’t be any different.”

 

Minji looked up from her phone and sighed. “It _will_ be fundamentally different, though,” Minji said. “Yeah, we get dinner with our friends back in Seoul, but they’re our people. These people don’t like _our_ people.”

 

Jinyoung blinked in confusion.

 

“What do you mean by ‘ _these_ people’?” he asked.

 

“You know, like—” Minji put her phone down for a minute and made a vague gesture which Jinyoung took to refer to everything. “You and I, we’re city people, we’re not used to this… sleepy, claustrophobic small town vibe. If you stay too long in a small town, you start thinking small thoughts.”

 

He furrowed his brows at her. “Are you saying that just because these people—through no fault of their own—were born in a small town that they’re simple-minded?”

 

Jinyoung turned onto a dirt road. “Not going to lie,” he said. “That’s a little bit offensive, Minji.”

 

“Oh, never mind,” Minji said, sighing and turning away from him. “Sometimes I feel like you purposely misconstrue my words, like you derive some kind of pleasure from misunderstanding me.”

 

Jinyoung scoffed. If anything, _she_ was the one who was always misunderstanding him, always sending him mixed signals. He used to like it. Back in the early stages of their courtship, she played hard-to-get, and Jinyoung thought it was kind of thrilling, kind of sexy, having to decode her messages and find out what she was hinting at. He played along.

 

It was less attractive now, though, almost six months into the relationship. He just wanted to talk to her, plainly, without guile or hidden agenda or cryptic innuendos.

 

The Kims didn’t have a driveway. The front of the house had a stone path leading to the stone base of the _hanok_ , and there was grass shooting up from between the pebbles and the gravel. Jinyoung pulled the car up there and parked.

 

“Minji, I don’t want to fight with you,” he said gently as he switched off the ignition. “You know I love you, and you’re like family to me. So are these people. There is no ‘our people’ and ‘their people,’ there’s just people. You just have to… find what’s similar in the differences and use that as a point of connection.”

 

Minji didn’t answer him. She looked out through the windshield at the sagging old house and sighed. Jinyoung turned a soft gaze on her, silently begging her: _Please do this for me. Please love the people that I love_. _They’ll love you, too_.

 

She didn’t say another word, and Jinyoung didn’t know what to make of it. They both got out of the car and approached the house. The door slid out of its frame again when Jinyoung pulled it. He tried to balance it against the wall.

 

“Hello?” he called. “Sorry about the door.”

 

They were greeted by Harabeoji, who was wearing _hanbok_ and pacing the floor with his hands behind his back. He stared blankly at Jinyoung and his girlfriend.

 

“Park Jinyoung,” he said. “You’re late.”

 

Jinyoung was kicking off his shoes and he checked his watch. It was 7 pm on the dot, making him precisely on time. “No, we’re not, sir,” he said. Harabeoji grunted.

 

“Don’t try to outsmart me, son,” he said. “I know your lessons begin at eleven. My daughter will be upset.”

 

Jinyoung smiled. “Harabeoji, I haven’t been to lessons in years,” he said.

 

“Then my daughter will be _extremely_ upset,” Harabeoji said in an even sterner voice. “Nothing can be achieved in this life without commitment, young man. Goals are achieved by those who show up.”

 

“Harabeoji, stop harassing our guests,” said Jisoo, appearing from the kitchen. She was wearing a plaid apron over her t-shirt and jeans. She led her grandfather to the dining room before returning to greet Jinyoung and Minji with hugs for both.

 

“Sorry about my grandfather,” Jisoo said nervously to Minji. She must still remember their unfortunate encounter in the town square. Jinyoung swatted away her concern like it was a fly.

 

“No, it was kind of inspiring,” Jinyoung said. “You really should be collecting his pearls of wisdom in a notebook or something.”

 

Jisoo’s mother and father came out into the living area to greet their guests, too. Along with Miyoung and Boyoung, Mrs. Kim had been more of a mother figure to Jinyoung than his own mother. She spoke to him in a casual, slightly irreverent tone and then asked to see his hands. She could somehow always tell whether or not he’d been practicing on the piano based on the state of his fingers. Then she commented again on how tall he was getting and playfully slapped his ass, teasing him about how many squats he must be doing each day back in those Seoul gyms.

 

“I bet your girlfriend likes it,” Mrs. Kim, winking at Minji. Jisoo hid her face, embarrassed by her mother’s behavior.

 

“Mom, you can’t just slap people’s asses as a greeting,” she said.

 

“I’m just being friendly,” her mother said, and even gave Minji’s butt a light tap, making the girl give a stunned yelp.Jinyoung used to get his wrists slapped with a switch when he rushed or dragged the tempo during lessons, so he could tell the difference between friendly and unfriendly slapping and for the most part he didn’t mind. Minji, however, looked disturbed.

 

“I hope you guys are hungry,” Jisoo said to Minji, trying to make her feel comfortable again. “My mom went sort of crazy in the kitchen, and I should apologize in advance for the tofu. It’s not her forte. But I did make a cake for tonight.”

 

“You baked?” Jinyoung said. “And the house is still standing?”

 

“My Pinterest skills have improved over the past five years,” Jisoo said. “You’ll be shocked. It’s a crepe cake, and if I do say so myself, it’s pretty bomb.”

 

Minji pressed her lips into a thin line. “I’m actually on a low sugar diet.”

 

 

 

 

 

Jisoo’s mother really did pull out all the stops on tonight’s meal. Miyoung and Boyoung did most of the cooking while Jinyoung was at home, and his sisters liked trying out elaborate western recipes.

 

Mrs. Kim, however, served them nothing but traditional Korean fare. Braised beef short ribs and vegetables, spicy pan fried tofu, seasoned bok choy, soybean sprouts, kimchi, fried flatfish, potato salad, pork dumplings, cold slices of pickled cucumbers. The table was so full that there was hardly room to rest their chopsticks.

 

Jinyoung dug right in. Jisoo helped her mother spoon rice into bowls to pass around the table before going for the beansprouts. Mrs. Kim handed a bowl of rice to Minji.

 

“Uh,” Minji said, accepting the bowl with a cautious look. “You don’t happen to have… quinoa, instead?”

 

Mrs. Kim looked at her like she just spoke Greek.

 

“It’s a type of grain, Mom,” Jisoo said. “People in LA ate it all the time. It’s a healthy substitute for rice.”

 

“Why would substitute it for rice?” Mrs. Kim asked.

 

“Because white rice is a stealthy killer,” Minji said. “It’s just plain disgusting. It has traces of arsenic and phytates and almost no fiber or nutritional value at all, and it causes your blood sugar to spike and it makes you fat, then it kills you.”

 

Mrs. Kim blinked at Minji and then looked at her husband’s gut. “Well, honey, that explains a lot about you,” she said to him. Jisoo’s father looked down at his protruding belly and just laughed. Minji sighed.

 

“So I guess that’s a no on the quinoa?” she asked. “Fine. What about amaranth or millet or brown rice, even? What kinds of super grains do you keep around here?”

 

Mrs. Kim shrugged. “White rice,” she said.

 

“I can fix you up a salad real quick,” Jisoo said, trying to be diplomatic. She went into the kitchen and pulled out the plastic box of greens that they had in the fridge.

 

“Dark greens only, please,” Minji called to Jisoo in the kitchen. “And if you have any orange slices lying around, toss those in, too. And hold the dressing, especially cream-based dressings. Add a dash of extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of salt, instead. Oh, and nuts, please, but not cashews or walnuts or almonds or peanuts.”

 

Jisoo paused for a minute and tried to process all the instructions. She wasn’t sure what kind of nuts Minji expected her to add if not cashews, walnuts, almonds, or peanuts. But she gave Jinyoung’s girlfriend a firm nod and decided to try her best anyway.

 

When dinner was over and Jisoo served them her crepe cake, Mrs. Kim suddenly announced that she had childhood pictures of Jinyoung and asked Minji if she was interested in seeing them. Minji looked tense when the suggestion came her way, but Mrs. Kim pulled her by the arm over to the living area and made her sit on one of the green cushions at the table in the center.

 

Jinyoung was amused. He followed his former piano tutor and sat on one of the green cushions next to his girlfriend while Jisoo took the dishes over to the sink. Mrs. Kim leaned over the table, flipping through the pages of a photo album.

 

Some of the pictures in the beginning were very old ones, black and white and sepia photos of Harabeoji’s war days. Jinyoung remembered flipping through them once with Jisoo years ago. But Mrs. Kim skipped straight to the middle of the album.

 

“Ah, here’s one,” Mrs. Kim said. “He’s eleven here, at his first piano recital. He was supposed to play Franz Liszt’s ‘Liebstraum,’ but of course, he bombed it. I told you you should have practiced it one more time. Ain’t he cute?”

 

Minji looked down at the photo, but he expression was unreadable. Mrs. Kim continued flipping.

 

“Oh, here’s one of him and Jisoo on their first day of high school!” she said. “They’re scowling because they didn’t want to take the picture. Oh, this must have been before Jisoo got her braces off!”

 

“Mom!” Jisoo shouted from the kitchen. “You’re showing her my pre-straight teeth stage?”

 

“You should show her the one from our picnic at the river,” said Mr. Kim and then playfully nudged Minji’s shoulder. “Jinyoung and his family were there, too. We have a picture of him holding what he thought was a really big rock, but it was really just dried cow shit.”

 

“Oh, I forgot we had this one!” Mrs. Kim said. “So, this is Jisoo in costume for the summer program in third grade, but if you look in the back, you can see Jinyoung there. He was Prince Charming. I guess now he’s _your_ Prince Charming, eh?”

 

“Jinyoung wanted to be a music producer,” Mr. Kim said. “Oh, but I guess that dream is over.”

 

Jinyoung creased his brows. “Not entirely,” he said. “I… I could still do it.”

 

Just because he chose one path in college didn’t mean that the other wasn’t viable still. Deep down, he still felt he could do it if he really gave himself a fighting chance. He didn’t notice Minji staring at him with an incredulous look.

 

“Oh, and this one is Jisoo and Jinyoung at the talent show in high school,” said Mr. Kim. “They won first place! Very impressive, they choreographed the entire thing themselves just using videos from iTube.”

 

“It’s _You_ Tube, Dad.”

 

“That’s what I said. iTube.”

 

“Here he is at the school festival, performing one of his original pieces,” Mrs. Kim said.

 

“Jisoo performed a monologue, I remember,” said Mr. Kim.

 

“Oh and this is them at graduation!” Mrs. Kim said, pointing to a photo of Jinyoung and Jisoo in their senior uniforms, standing side by side, each holding a diploma. Actually, only Jinyoung’s face was visible in this photo.

 

Jinyoung pulled the album towards himself and Minji, looking closer at the picture. He remembered.

 

He remembered that Jisoo cried so much that day. The ceremony had scarcely started and her face was already dripping with tears. He had to help calm her down so that she could breathe.

 

They said goodbye to so many of their friends that day. Said goodbye to their teachers and their classmates. It was a bittersweet moment. The gentle sadness, the uncertainty, the excitement of it all was making their stomachs twist into knots, their eyes sting with tears, and their stone-cold teenage hearts go soft. In the photo, Jinyoung was holding his diploma in one hand and had his other arm slung around Jisoo. She was using her diploma to cover her face as she cried. She was turned slightly inward, crying into his shoulder while he smiled for the both of them. 

 

Jinyoung only lifted his eyes from the photo to look up at Jisoo, who was watching the family from the kitchen, and he smiled. Jinyoung had a number of different smiles, and Jisoo knew them all. Minji wasn’t as familiar, but she didn’t need to be to see that it wasn’t a smile he’d ever given her.

 

 

 

 

 

Minji was silent as they walked back to the car. She was silent the entire ride over as well. When Jinyoung pulled into his family’s driveway, neither of them made a move to get out of the car. They both stared blankly out the windshield and listened to the silence. Jinyoung let out a slow breath.

 

“Say something,” he whispered.

 

Minji stirred.

 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she began, feigning a tone of innocence. She started laughing.

 

“You know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words,” she said. “And they showed me an _entire album_ of pictures.”

 

He waited for her to explain, but she didn’t.

 

“You’re upset about the pictures?” he asked. Minji huffed her breath.

 

“No, I’m not upset about the pictures,” she said. She turned to him with a scowl.

 

“Why did you bring me here anyway?” she asked. “So you can rub into my face that all these people know my boyfriend better than I know him? So you can make me sit there while you and Jisoo exchange flirty, desperate glances across the table?”

 

Jinyoung was taken aback by her answer. “What?”

 

Minji rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, don’t give me that bullshit,” she said.

 

She narrowed her eyes at him and raised her voice. “Don’t try to deny it,” she said. “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

 

She started laughing and spoke in a mocking, high pitched voice. “She was your BFF, your secret little childhood sweetheart. Adorable. She was the _only_ one who could get you to talk during piano lessons and come out of your shell. She taught you how to drink beer and tie your shoelaces and held your hand at recess. First love, _aww_. So cute, so sweet, so romantic. Did she give you your first blow job, too? Behind the gym, after school? Did she look cute in a schoolgirl uniform? Oh, I bet you liked that—”

 

Jinyoung’s heart started to pound.

 

“So _that’s_ why you’re pissed?” he asked. “You’re throwing a tantrum because I have female friends who aren’t you? As if _you_ don’t have guy friends who go back farther than me?”

 

He scoffed and squeezed the wheel so hard, his knuckles turned white. He fumed.

 

“You know what? Yes,” he said. “Jisoo _is_ my friend, one of my oldest and closest friends, and the last time I saw her was five years ago. _Five years ago_ , Minji.”

 

Thinking about all the time he and Jisoo spent apart brought on a whole new set of emotions, adding even more fuel to the fire of his frustration.

 

“I haven’t seen any of these people or been _home_ in five years,” Jinyoung said. “And when we go to New York, I may not be back for another five years. You and I will spend so much time together, we have the whole future ahead of us, we have New York ahead of us. All I asked for was _one_ summer in _my_ hometown with _my_ family.”

 

Before she had a chance to reply, Jinyoung opened the door and exited the vehicle. Minji scoffed at his bravado. She unclipped her seat belt and stepped out of the car. Jinyoung was striding towards the front door, fishing out his keys, when Minji blocked his path.

 

 _“You_ have changed, Park Jinyoung,” she said. “This place, being here, it’s changed you. And you don’t even realize it.”

 

He rolled his eyes, losing his patience with her.

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“Well, let’s start with your clothes,” Minji said, gesturing at his outfit. He was wearing a worn blue flannel shirt over a pair of wide-leg khakis.

 

“Look what you’re wearing!” Minji said. “Your shirt isn’t ironed, your pants look like they swallowed your legs, you haven’t combed your hair—”

 

“I was going to a friend’s house,” Jinyoung said, trying not to raise his voice. He didn’t want his family to hear them. “I didn’t feel the need to pull on my tux. Nobody there had anything to say about how I was dressed or what my hair looked like, that’s all you.”

 

Minji scoffed. She gave him a defiant stare and raised a single eyebrow.

 

“Alright,” she said, crossing her arms. “Well, what then what about all this nonsense about becoming a music producer?”

 

Jinyoung steeled. “What about it?”

 

Minji scoffed. “Where did that come from?” she asked. Jinyoung stepped around her to walk up to the front door, but his girlfriend chased after him.

 

“You’re _seriously_ thinking about throwing away your career, your promotion?” she asked. “You’re thinking about throwing away _New York_ to chase after your high school pipe dream? Do you know how immature you sound?”

 

Jinyoung stopped just before he could reach the door. His jaw was taut and his heart was still pounding. The anger was starting to subside, being replaced with sadness.

 

“I honestly don’t understand why you’re upset,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I thought you would like this. I thought you would like meeting my friends and family. I thought you would like seeing where I grew up, getting to know the person I was before I met you.”

 

Minji looked him up and down. “I think I prefer the Jinyoung that I met.”

 

He looked at Minji and then heaved in a deep, sad sigh. _Well,_ he thought, _at least_ one _of us does._


	10. Homeward Route

****When they were fifteen and nearing the end of their first year in high school, Jisoo correctly guessed that Mark and Nayeon would be the first ones in their class to start dating. Which wasn’t that big a deal, since nearly everyone knew that they were secretly crushing on each other since middle school.

 

Still, Jinyoung and Jisoo were a little shocked when Mark told them after school that day that he wouldn’t be walking home with them that day or from then on. He’d be walking with Nayeon, instead.

 

“Didn’t I tell you they would be the first one’s in our grade to date?” Jisoo said. It was mid-afternoon. She and Jinyoung were making their way home after school. She was playing a game on his Nintendo DS and walking at the same time.

 

Jinyoung had his arms outstretched for balance as he walked on top of a low brick wall.

 

“Big deal,” Jinyoung said. “Everyone knew they were going to get together eventually.”

 

“Yeah, but I was the first one to say it,” Jisoo said.

 

Of course, everyone in class had their crushes. They sent each other secret admirer valentines and passed notes in class with multiple choice questions like “Do you like me? Yes, no, maybe? Circle one.” But Mark and Nayeon were the first ones to actually take action, and their courage would unknowingly give other potential couples in their class permission to do the same.

 

“So, Mark and Nayeon are a thing now,” Jinyoung said, jumping down from the wall. “Who else do you think is going to start dating?”

 

Jisoo paused and thought for a minute.

 

“Jackson and Hana. They’re next. I can feel it,” Jisoo said, closing Jinyoung’s Nintendo and handing it back to him. “They’re literally always together now, and they walk home together, and they’re friends, but something’s going to click, and they’ll start dating. Or maybe Krystal and Jongin. Personally, I don’t think Jongin is serious about her, but if he asked Krystal, she probably wouldn’t say no.”

 

“What about Jaebum and that goth girl, Jennie?” he laughed as soon as he said it. He had caught Jaebum staring at Jennie before, during baseball practice when she was sitting under the bleachers reading thick Bronte novels. Everyone on the team had a good laugh about that when Jinyoung pointed it out, but he low-key thought it was kind of sweet that the baseball team captain and most popular boy in class had a crush on the dark loner girl.

 

“I wish him luck,” Jisoo said, kicking a pebble. “Everyone knows that Jennie isn’t interested in boys in our grade.”

 

Jinyoung felt bad for Jaebum.

 

“Okay,” Jinyoung said, swinging his backpack around to put his Nintendo away. “What about… Yugyeom and Rose?”

 

Jisoo raised her brows. “Yugyeom likes Rose?”

 

“You kidding?” Jinyoung said. “Head over heels. He never shuts up about her during band practice.”

 

“Oh god, I feel bad now,” Jisoo said, pressing a palm to her cheek. “Should we tell him that Rose likes Youngjae?”

 

It Jinyoung’s turn to crease his brows. “I thought Rose liked Chanyeol?”

 

“No, that’s Seulgi,” Jisoo said. “Rose likes Youngjae. She told me during lunch once, she was upset because she found out that—”

 

“That Youngjae likes Mijoo?” Jinyoung said. Jisoo started laughing.

 

“Yeah, and Mijoo likes Jaebum, and Jaebum likes Jennie, and Jennie only loves Mumford and Sons.”

 

Jinyoung laughed. “Is this our school or the plot of a daytime TV drama?” he said. “Love is complicated.”

 

He was laughing along with Jisoo at the convoluted network of crushes unfolding in their class and the drama that was bound to explode onto their idyllic high school life, but the thought of dating and all this talk of love brought the idea of marriage to his mind. Which only made him think of his parents and their crumbling one. He was eager all of a sudden to change the subject. Speaking of TV, Jinyoung decided to ask Jisoo what she thought of the latest episode of “The Walking Dead,” but before he could even say the words, Jisoo had stopped and asked him:

 

“Who do _you_ like?”

 

He stopped in his tracks. He raised his eyes to her slowly.

 

Jinyoung had known for a few years now that eventually, he was going to have to face the music and stop pretending he couldn’t hear it. He didn’t think that the moment would come this soon, however.

 

He definitely felt some sort of way toward Jisoo, he just couldn’t figure out what it was. A part of him was afraid to even give it a label, as if giving it a name would make it true.

 

Of course, he’d also heard what the other kids in their class whispered about them. After Mark and Nayeon, he and Jisoo were the ones everyone was waiting for. He didn’t like rumors, and he especially didn’t like to indulge them, which was another reason why whenever the thought of dating Jisoo popped up, he would pick it up and moved it someplace else in his mind. A matter for another time. A bridge to cross later.

 

But here it was now.

 

Jinyoung stared and blinked at Jisoo for a long time, thinking of how to answer. He could say “no,” but it would be a lie, and he never lied to Jisoo. Or he could say “yes,” but she would want to know who it was and he didn’t know if he had the courage to admit it yet, even to himself.

 

“Fine. Don’t tell me,” Jisoo said, rolling her eyes and sighing. He’d taken too long to answer. “Whatever. I mean, I’m just your best friend, why tell _me_ , right?”

 

Jisoo turned and continued walking. Jinyoung couldn’t bring himself to look at her, so he looked at the sky just above her head instead, watching as the clouds passed and the sunshine turned slightly orange.

 

Damn, he thought. The moment was over so quickly.

 

She was different the rest of the time they walked home. He did end up asking her what she thought of the latest “The Walking Dead” episode, but instead launching into a monologue about zombies, she gave quick and curt answers. Her arms remained crossed tight across her chest the rest of the way. He was confused.

 

She couldn’t _possibly_ be actually upset that he didn’t answer her question, right? It’s not as if she confided her secret crush’s name to him, either.

 

He was about to ask, but before he even knew it, they were standing in front of his house.

 

“See you tomorrow,” Jisoo said. Jinyoung said goodbye as stopped in front of his house while Jisoo walked on. He was about to walk up to the front door, but then he heard the muffled angry voices of his parents. _Still_ fighting.

 

He hesitated. When he turned around, he saw that Jisoo had stopped walking and was standing at the edge of the lawn. Watching him, waiting for him to go inside. All it took was one look for Jisoo to realize that he wasn’t going to go inside, not yet anyway. She beckoned him over with her hand.

 

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s take a lap around the block.”

 

He didn’t hesitate. He jogged over to where Jisoo was and the two of them took a lap around the block. They ended up wandering, however, into the grassy half mile gap between the last row of houses and the cluster of _hanok_ homes where Jisoo lived. When they got tired, they just sat down in the grass.

 

“When did they start fighting like that?” Jisoo asked.

 

Jinyoung swallowed. If anyone other than her had asked him, he would have tried to dodge the question. But something about Jisoo’s presence calmed him, made him want to open up. So he told her what happened, how his father discovered his mother’s affair two weeks ago, how the fighting had started, how Boyoung threatened to run away. When all his thoughts and feelings had been spilled, he felt empty and light.

 

It was times like these that Jinyoung felt that she was all he really had.

 

They met when they were ten. There was no one else in their group of friends who came even close to touching the lofty place that Jisoo occupied in his life. She was a fixed star in the swirling, galactic chaos that was his life. She was his best friend, his whole world, his hiding place, and coming home would always means coming back to her.

 

And he couldn’t risk that.

 

 

 

 

 

The stickiness of summer dried slowly in their sleepy town. Autumn was creeping in. The humidity in the air began to subside, and the hot sting of the sun’s rays started to dull, and clouds started to roll in.

 

Just like that, Jisoo had spent three months back in her hometown.

 

She wondered whether or not inviting Jinyoung and his girlfriend to dinner had been a good idea. The evening had gone well enough, but after that, Jinyoung didn’t contact her again.

 

Which was fine, she supposed. She was busy anyway, helping the kids prepare for the summer program. After teaching them some acting exercises and doing a few improvisation games, they were much more open to the idea of performing on stage and learning their lines and cues. Now, the only problem was overcoming stage fright and pre-opening night jitters.

 

In the middle of rehearsal that morning, Dorothy puked.

 

“Guys, don’t just huddle around it!” Jisoo said, rushing up to the stage to escort the sick girl off.

 

Mrs. Kim called the girl’s parents to take her home. Rehearsals had to be cut early since there was little they could do without their lead actress. Jisoo, meanwhile, hurried to the women’s restroom to grab some paper towels to clean up the mess.

 

“We’ll see how Yujin is feeling tomorrow,” Mrs. Kim said as the kids gathered their things and one-by-one left the hall. “Either way, we are _still_ going to go over the apple-throwing scene tomorrow, so make sure you are here!”

 

Jisoo was almost done mopping up the vomit on the stage when she turned and saw Yoon Sojung, the little girl playing the Wicked Witch standing behind her, twiddling her thumbs.

 

“Oh, hey Sojung,” Jisoo said, dumping a handful of soiled paper towels into a rubbish bin. Sojung followed her quietly until Jisoo stopped and gave her her full attention.

 

“What’s up?” Jisoo asked.

 

Sojung opened her mouth and then closed it several times before she was finally able to speak up.

 

“I didn’t wanna tell Mrs. Kim since I think she’ll get mad,” Sojung said. Jisoo frowned. This sounded like bad news.

 

“Okay?” Jisoo said. “What is it?”

 

Sojung looked down at her shoes. “I don’t really want to do the program anymore,” she whispered. Jisoo’s heart sank.

 

“But why?” she asked. “Are you nervous about going up in front of people? Do you not like the exercises we’ve been doing?”

 

Sojung shrugged. “No, I like the acting part a lot and the games we’ve been doing are fun, it’s just that…” her voice trailed off a bit and she looked at the ceiling, as if the words she wanted to say were there. Jisoo waited patiently.

 

“I just don’t want to… I feel like…” Sojung swallowed. “I really wanted to play Dorothy, not the witch.”

 

Jisoo relaxed her shoulders. “Oh,” she said, rubbing her arm. “Well, you know, Sojung, we can’t always have everything we want. Did you talk to Mrs. Kim about the parts? Did you tell her you wanted Dorothy?”

 

“Well… no, but… I thought I would be good enough to play Dorothy, but I guess Mrs. Kim wanted me to play the witch. Guess I wasn’t good enough to play Dorothy. I’m pretty bad at it.”

 

Jisoo didn’t know what to say. She thought Sojung had been enjoying herself, just like the others. Sure, her acting was still a little stiff and her voice shook when she delivered her lines, but these things were to be expected from a bunch of ten-year-olds on stage. That was half the fun to even going to a children’s play.

 

“Sojung, do you… _like_ acting and being on stage and stuff?” Jisoo asked, sitting down on the edge of the stage. Sojung sat beside her, shrugging.

 

“I don’t really know,” Sojung said. “I haven’t ever tried it, but I always wanted to. The games that we do and stuff are really fun, but… I don’t know. I don’t think I could be like an actress or anything.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because. I’m bad at it.”

 

“Yeah, but you could get better,” Jisoo said. “Look, Sojung, I don’t want you to feel like you have to give up something you like doing just because you think you’re bad at it. Look, anything that’s worth succeeding is also worth failing, and if it’s worth failing then it’s also worth trying again. And that’s okay.”

 

Jisoo watched Sojung’s face for any kind of response. After sitting in silence, the little girl’s lip curled into a soft smile.

 

Suddenly, Jisoo thought of Los Angeles and her own acting journey.

 

Her mind wandered back to every audition she went to, every college film student’s project she’d been a part of, every cheesy commercial she had starred in, every time an agent told her to lose or gain weight or change her name to Jessica or Janine or criticized her accent. She remembered the feeling of complete and utter defeat that overwhelmed her when she had to use her last handful of quarters to call her parents and ask for the funds to be flown home. She thought of the burden of shame that pinned her down to her bed every morning she woke up in her childhood bedroom. Punishing herself for not being able to realize her dream.

 

And it was okay. It was all okay because it brought her here, brought her beside a young girl with the exact same dream who needed to know that it was okay not to succeed on the first try.

 

 

 

 

 

It was late in the afternoon as Jisoo was locking up the hall and preparing to walk home when she saw the shadow of a person approaching her. When she turned around, she saw Jinyoung standing there in a plain white shirt and a beat-up old pair of jeans.

 

“Am I late for rehearsals?” he joked as Jisoo turned the key. She jumped at the sound of his voice. She supposed she was still getting used to how deep it became.

 

“Jinyoung?” she said. He chuckled.

 

“Hi,” he said. “Did you just wrap up rehearsals?”

 

“Yeah,” Jisoo said, dropping the key into her pocket and starting down the path. Jinyoung fell into step beside her.

 

“How’d it go?” he asked.

 

“Pretty good,” she said, tucking a hair behind her ear. “The kids are actually learning their lines and cues now, so it’s mostly just polishing it up, getting it ready for premiere night.”

 

“When is it?” he asked as they rounded a corner of the sidewalk.

 

“First day of September, which is the last day of summer,” Jisoo said. “Well, for the kids, at least. They’ll be going straight back to school afterwards.”

 

“I thought your mom was the director,” Jinyoung said, curious as to why Mrs. Kim wasn’t helping lock up with her daughter.

 

“She is,” Jisoo said. “I just filled in for her today since she was busy.”

 

Jinyoung nodded, remembering that time he walked in on her improvising a scene with one of the boys last time. He had seen her act before, in high school plays and during skits at the school festival. She was good at it, and it was good to see her doing it again.

 

“So, is this what you’ll be doing from now on?” he asked.

 

“Filling in for my mom?” Jisoo raised a brow and looked at him.

 

“No,” he said. “Directing. Theater. Kids.”

 

“Oh,” Jisoo said. “I don’t know. I never gave it much thought.”

 

Their drama club had been small, just a handful of creative souls and some misfits who weren’t welcome in any of the other cliques. Everyone pitched in, and Jisoo had worn a great many hats, even helping direct a few productions. But all her energy had been focused on acting. She was so sure that this was the path she wanted to walk. It hadn’t occurred to her before that she could have been meant for anything else.

 

“I guess I should, though,” Jisoo said, scratching the back of her neck. “I’ve been home almost three months now. I guess it should start hitting me soon that this could be permanent.”

 

He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t, and he worried. “Does that bother you?” he asked.

 

“I don’t know,” Jisoo’s shrug became a shiver as a breeze blew past them.

 

“It did before, when I first got here,” she said. “It felt like… you how when you’re playing a game and you’re on a winning streak, but then something happens and all of sudden you’re back to level one and you have to do everything all over again? That’s what it feels like. Like I have to start all over again.”

 

Jinyoung knew the feeling well, having played quite a few games in the past. But mostly also because he was feeling it, too. Being back home had made him quite familiar with the feeling. It occurred to him, though, that Jisoo didn’t view the homecoming the same way, he did, though.

 

“It could be a good thing, too,” he said, unconsciously moving closer to her at the air grew colder. “I’d rather start all over again than end up someplace I don’t want to be.”

 

That, too, was a feeling he was becoming scarily familiar with. Jisoo slowed down and looked over at him with a smirk. When did he get so good at words? She slowed her walk, and so did he.

 

“Where’s Minji?” Jisoo asked as they rounded another corner, bringing them to the part of the homeward route that was closest to a few empty lots. Jinyoung kicked a pebble.

 

“I successfully convinced her to get dinner with Boyoung and Miyoung tonight,” he said, smiling triumphantly to himself. “They’re across town, at the Mediterranean place.”

 

“Ah,” Jisoo said nodding. She was amused at the way Jinyoung smiled when she mentioned Minji, even if it made her heart ache a little. But the smile faded almost as soon as it appeared. She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. She cleared her throat.

 

“So,” she said carefully. “How are you two doing?”

 

Jinyoung stopped walking for a minute and looked down at his shoes. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and tried to choose what he said next carefully.

 

“Do you… think I’ve changed?” he asked, echoing Minji’s words from that night outside his house. He watched as Jisoo considered him.

 

“Yeah, a little bit,” she said.

 

“How?”

 

“Well, for starters, your voice sounds really freaking different,” Jisoo said. She remembered back when his voice was going through puberty. It used to drive their teacher insane. Jinyoung chuckled.

 

“Yours does, too,” he said. Jisoo creased her brow.

 

“Really?” she said.

 

Jinyoung blushed, but he didn’t know why. “It’s deeper, too,” he said. “And… smoother, I don’t know. You don’t sound like a guy, don’t worry.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“But I mean, aside from my voice and appearances,” he asked again. “Do you think I’ve changed?”

 

This was such an odd line of questioning, Jisoo thought. If he wanted her honest opinion, she’d say no, he didn’t seem to have changed. Maybe he was taller and his voice deeper and his temperament had mellowed out a bit, but at his core, Jisoo didn’t feel that he was fundamentally different. There, at his core, he was still the Jinyoung that she knew and loved.

 

“Do _you_ think you have?” she asked.

 

Jinyoung shrugged. He didn’t feel any different, but when your girlfriend says you’ve changed, that must mean something, right?

 

“I don’t know,” he said. “But Minji thinks I have.”

 

Jisoo tilted her head. “In what way does she mean?”

 

“Well, she talked about my clothes, first of all.”

 

“What do you mean?” Jisoo said, genuinely confused. “You’re wearing a t-shirt and jeans, a classic Jinyoung outfit. Or… well, I guess maybe she’s gotten used to seeing you all dressed up. She’s so glamorous. You’ve seen what she wears, what she’s used to.”

 

It was hard not to automatically take his side. It was a reflex of hers, but she wanted to be fair to Minji, too. She was her best friend’s girlfriend, after all, and if Jinyoung could fall in love with her, then she must be someone who side was worth seeing, too.

 

“Maybe,” Jinyoung said. “But I mean, what am I supposed to wear? I’m just at home, it’s not as if there’s anyone to impress. I just want to be comfortable.”

 

It wasn’t like Jinyoung to get worked up because someone didn’t like the way he dressed.

 

“So… clothing is still appearances,” Jisoo said. “What does she really mean?”

 

Jinyoung was quiet for a minute.

 

“I actually sort of do understand what she means by it,” he said after a while. “When Minji and I met, I was kind of a different person. I was… cutthroat and standoffish and didn’t really care about anything but work and money, I was trying to adjust to a new job and being on my own and I was… unhappy.”

 

He fought back a wave of anger that threatened to wash over him. Those couple of years directly after Jisoo left were hard on him. They had been together since they were ten. He hadn’t prepared himself to move on without her.

 

Jisoo was quiet. Deep down, she knew that his unhappiness had something to do with her. They could both see each other thinking the same thing, but neither of them had the courage to speak it into existence.

 

“And then, eight months ago, I met her,” Jinyoung continued. “At a celebratory dinner for work. We were the youngest employees invited, so we just started talking, hit it off.”

 

He remembered that night. He was one of the top earners of that quarter and had been personally invited by the boss. Minji had taken the seat at the table next to him and threw him flirtatious glances all evening, and returned the gesture. It had been so long since he’d had a girlfriend or anyone he could truly connect with, and he craved it so badly.

 

“I started dating her.”

 

Jisoo swallowed hard. She was happy for him, she was happy for him, she was happy for him.

 

“Are you… happy… with her?” she asked.

 

I’m happy if he’s happy, I’m happy if he’s happy, I’m happy if he’s happy.

 

“Do you like her?” Jinyoung asked out of the blue. Jisoo was taken aback.

 

“What does it matter what I think?” she asked. “It matters what _you_ think.”

 

Jinyoung pressed his lips into a line. “Yeah,” he said. “But you’re my friend. What you think matters to me, too.”

 

Friend. That’s right. Jisoo smiled gently, not understanding how a label she had grown so fond of and had made her home in over the years could feel so burdensome.

 

“Honestly, Jinyoung, she’s still kind of a stranger to me,” Jisoo said. “I… I like her enough, but I just don’t really know her enough. But I trust you, so if you like her, then so do I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about the update delay. This chapter seriously gave me problems, and it became apparent as I was drafting that I did not do enough planning for this chapter. Which is why it’s high-key filler content. Shame on me. Oh well, moving on, I guess. Hope you’re enjoying so far and that this chapter hasn’t disappointed you too much. Next chapter will be way more entertaining, I promise.


	11. You Make My Dreams

 

 

> [ _Listen_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoFJgLmbYZE)

 

Jisoo was excited when August ended and Boyoung Unni’s wedding finally rolled around. She loved weddings and parties and she especially loved that a girl she had idolized and thought of the cool big sister that her parents never gave her was finally getting married. 

 

The Parks had a small, intimate ceremony in the morning with just hers and Yoshiki’s immediate family, who had flown all the way from Tokyo. Boyoung and her new husband were planning to fly back the following week so they could have another ceremony with the rest of Yoshiki’s clan.

 

So it was late in the afternoon by the time Jisoo walked into the hall at the hotel where the reception was being held. She was a little late, though. Mostly her fault for waking up late and then forgetting that she still had to make sure her grandfather had dinner since her parents would be out of town tonight. Then she hurriedly got ready, telling her grandfather not to expect her back until later that night. She didn’t realize she had left the still-broken door leaning against the side of the house when she left.

 

Bundles of wisteria and round white lanterns dangled from the ceiling, illuminating the hall with a soft, romantic glow. Tables had been set around a dance floor and were covered in white linens and centered with short vases overflowing with wild roses, lit by strings of fairy lights. The effect was whimsical and otherworldly. A midsummer night’s dream of a wedding.

 

“Jisoo!” called out a beautiful young woman in a sparkling white gown. Jisoo rushed over to Boyoung Unni and wrapped her arms around her.

 

“Oh my god, I am _so_ psyched that you could make it!” Boyoung said, crushing the younger girl to her chest. 

 

“Congratulations,” Jisoo said fondly. Beside them, a tall, tuxedoed groom with a man-bun clear his throat. Jisoo remembered her manners.

 

“Oh, hello,” she said nervously, pulling herself from Boyoung’s embrace. “I’m Kim Jisoo, I’ve heard so much about you.”

 

“I’ve heard about you, too,” said Yoshiki, giving her a firm handshake and a warm smile. “I heard you stole the show from Cinderella in the third grade.”

 

“And _I_ heard you’re stealing the show _again_ ,” Boyoung said. “From your mom this time. How’s the program going?”

 

“Oh, it’s coming along just fine, I think,” Jisoo said. “The kids don’t want to die every time they show up for rehearsals anymore, so I think we’re making progress.”

 

“Ugh, I can’t wait to see it,” Boyoung said, gripping Jisoo’s hands. “I’m so glad you could make it, I missed you so much! And you’ve gotten so _pretty_! Five years away from home and you went from a five-and-a-half to a ten, damn girl!”

 

Jisoo did dress up a little, it was a wedding after all. She had unearthed a periwinkle dress from the giant luggage bag that she had yet to unpack and put her mother’s steamer to good use before showing up. She curled her hair and let it fall over her shoulders like it naturally would. She was satisfied with her appearance when she left the house, but still, Jisoo swatted at Boyoung’s compliments like flies.

 

“You’re the bride here,” Jisoo said. “No one’s allowed to be a ten tonight except you.”

 

“Huh, guess you’re right,” Boyoung said. After exchanging their pleasantries, Jisoo headed into the hall and quickly found her table. She was sitting with a few of Boyoung’s college friends and some of the Parks’ distant cousins.

 

Jisoo befriended them easily enough, learned about a recent trip they made to Las Vegas and a new baby in the family. She casually mentioned having spent time in Los Angeles and they prodded her for stories of what life was like on the Golden Coast. The only story she could tell that would satiate their hunger was an anecdote about the time she accidentally stole Joe Jonas’ smoothie at a Jamba Juice and a thirty-second encounter with B. D. Wong at a photo shoot, which was only because she was taking care of lunch for the crew and needed to know if he had any food allergies. 

 

“So how do you know Boyoung?” asked one of Boyoung’s college friends. 

 

“I was—am—friends with her younger brother, Jinyoung,” Jisoo explained. “He and I go way back, all the way to third grade practically, and I hung out at their house a lot. Boyoung went to our school, too, and she walked home with us sometimes. Before she graduated.”

 

“Aww, how sweet,” the girl said. “Childhood friends.”

 

Jisoo had been keeping an eye out for Jinyoung, in fact. She had already spotted Mr. And Mrs. Park who were sitting at separate tables with respective grandparents. Miyoung, as the maid of honor, was rushing around, usually surrounded by a gaggle of bridesmaids in mauve dresses, trying to make sure everything was running smoothly.

 

When she got up to get a drink at the bar, however, it was Jinyoung who found _her_. The waiter was just handing Jisoo a cocktail when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

 

Turning around to face Jinyoung this time felt an awful lot like that time Jisoo saved Minji from her grandfather and Jinyoung had come running out of the tailor’s shop. He was wearing the same sleek tuxedo and his hair had been combed back.

 

The thing about tuxedos is that all men look good in them. Even a guy who is a four (at best) in his daily wear gets bumped up to a six or seven when he wears a tux. 

 

Jinyoung was better than a four.

 

“Hey,” he said, raising his voice a little so she could hear him over the hundred or so other conversations taking place. Jisoo took a sip of her drink.

 

“Hello there,” she said with a smile. “Nice tux.”

 

He looked down at his clothes with a smirk. “Thanks,” he said. “I see you’ve started drinking already.”

 

“Of course, I love weddings, especially weddings with open bars,” Jisoo said, lifting the cherry from her glass by its stem and popping it into her mouth. 

 

“What are you drinking?” he asked.

 

“It’s a Manhattan,” Jisoo said, covering her mouth as she chewed. “Which, I understand, is where you’ll be flying off to at the end of the summer. When are you leaving?”

 

Jinyoung bit down on his lip. He looked across the room at the table where his girlfriend was sitting, talking to another guest.

 

“It’s kind of up in the air right now,” he said. “Officially, our plane flies out of Seoul on the 24th of September, but we might actually be heading back up to the city next week.”

 

“ _Next week_?” Jisoo’s heart sank. “That’s… that’s so soon, though.”

 

He looked down at his shoes. “It is,” he said. “But there’s so much to do. We have to pack up the apartment, and I need to get everything straightened out at work.”

 

Jisoo couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She took another sip of her drink.

 

“But if you leave next week,” Jisoo said. “You… you won’t get to go to the rest of the reunion events.”

 

Jinyoung’s expression looked troubled. “Tell Jennie that I’m sorry,” he said. “I bet she worked really hard on it.”

 

“You bet your ass she did,” Jisoo downed the rest of her Manhattan and then waved the empty glass at him. “She’ll be really disappointed. And you will be, too, in the long run. So many fun things that you’re going to miss out on.”

 

Jinyoung made a show of sighing with deep disappointment. “I’m already so full of regrets as it is,” he said. “What’s a couple more?”

 

“You’re a buzzkill,” Jisoo said. Jinyoung laughed, but he started to fidget with his cufflinks.

 

“When is the last event for the reunion?” he asked. 

 

Jisoo stole a chocolate truffle from a dessert tray. “I don’t know,” she said. “Twentieth of September I think.” 

 

Jinyoung rubbed his wrists. “I could… drive back down for that weekend.”

 

Jisoo looked at him with her mouth half full of chocolate. “But don’t you fly out on the 24th? You don’t think that’s cutting it too close?”

 

He shrugged. “It probably is,” he said. “But still, I… want to be there. I’m moving to another country. I don’t know when I’ll see you or any of those people again.”

 

Their eyes met and they exchanged a pair of sad smiles. 

 

“We’ll see each other again,” Jisoo said, putting a hand on his shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

 

“Don’t worry. You’re going to New York, not North Korea,” she said, trying to sound cheerful for his sake. “Look, now that we’re back together again, I’m not letting you go, alright? So… don’t even _think_ about turning back into a stranger.”

 

She said that with solid resolve and every intention of following through. The last five years had been a mistake, one that she was determined not to make again. Jisoo retracted her arm and then reached for another chocolate truffle. Jinyoung’s heart started beating louder in his chest. He had no doubt that this time around, they would do better to stay in touch and actually stay friends. If their friendship could survive those five years of cold silence, then surely it could endure this.

 

But the thought of leaving this place hit another nerve, disrupted an old wound.

 

“Why did we turn into strangers in the first place?” Jinyoung asked. 

 

A vision of endless ocean appeared in their minds’ eyes. They saw the docks, the buoy, the darkening violet sky and the budding stars, the waning summer heat transforming into autumn, the taste of alcohol on their tongues.

 

Jisoo clenched her hands into fists and let her arms fall by her side. She couldn’t look him in the eye.

 

“You don’t remember?” she whispered. She thought he didn’t hear because he took so long to answer. Jinyoung bit his lips.

 

“How could I forget?” he said.

 

She looked at him with a sideways glance and then quickly averted her eyes. So he did remember. Everything she felt that evening started rushing back to her. The humiliation, the fear, the uncertainty, the rejection. The urge to pack up everything and run again. 

 

Jinyoung seemed to sense this, because he moved closer to her, like he was getting ready to chase after her. He tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but someone else put theirs on his first. 

 

Minji appeared at his side. She looked between Jinyoung and Jisoo before clearing her throat.

 

“Your sister and her husband are about to make their entrance,” she said. “We should take our seats.”

 

Jinyoung was about to protest and ask Minji to give him a minute to speak with his friend, but the lights dimmed and the music started. Guests turned their heads to face the entrance and Jisoo wandered back to her table without another word.

 

An MC introduced the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Kondo, and Boyoung and her husband walked into the hall arm in arm with smiles that were much too big for their faces, glowing radiant with joy. Guests cheered them on while a Natalie Cole song played on the loudspeakers. Jisoo clapped her hands and put on a smile for everyone else’s sake.

 

The music changed when Boyoung and Yoshiki turned to face each other on the dance floor and began their first dance as husband and wife. 

 

 They swayed in each other's arms, eyes glossy with tears and looking at one another as if no one else in the world existed. A look so soft and joyful and so full of love that it broke everyone’s hearts. 

 

Jisoo clenched her fists and pressed them against her lap. Before she even knew it, she was crying. 

 

 _That’s really what this is all about, isn’t it?_ she thought. 

 

Love. Finding it, acquiring it, losing it, not having it, giving it, withholding it. That was what the beginning and end of everything, she supposed. 

 

She looked around the room at all the guests and saw a couple more tear-stained faces. When she looked back at Boyoung and her husband, she saw that Yoshiki was crying, too, and Boyoung was wiping his tears and trying to smile for the both of them, for the guests, too. 

 

Jisoo’s eyes started to wander toward Jinyoung’s table again, but she forced herself to look away. The last thing she wanted was to make this beautiful wedding for two beautiful people about herself and her problems. 

 

The music switched to something more upbeat. Yoshiki dried his tears and broke into a laugh as he eyed his guests and beckoned them onto the dance floor. Boyoung’s college girl friends rushed to surround her with hugs and congratulations. They spun her around and danced together. More and more guests joined them in the center, and the music blasted louder.

 

Jinyoung remained seated while the waitstaff went around serving dinner to everyone who had decided to forgo dancing for now. 

 

He was watching his sister dance with her new husband. Boyoung had been popular with boys growing up, so seeing her with one wasn’t anything new, but this was one of the first times Jinyoung had seen her look truly happy. He felt relieved. 

 

He was thought about all the moments they shared. Miyoung was like a surrogate mother figure growing up: she packed him lunches and scolded him if he stayed out too late. Boyoung was more like a same-aged sibling, if anything, always stealing the pudding cup from his lunchbox and encouraging him to stay out late. 

 

Boyoung was one who was most hurt by their parents’ fighting and the dissolution of their marriage. For years, she declared she’d never marry. He was happy that she found someone worth breaking her rules for. 

 

One song ended and another one began. As soon as Jinyoung heard the first guitar riff, he burst out laughing and hid his face in his hands because he knew exactly what was going to happen next. 

 

Boyoung heard the song, too, and she immediately looked over at her little brother.

 

“Jinyoung!” she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at him. “Jinyoung! Come on! It’s Hall and Oates, it’s the song!”

 

“Jinyoung, it’s _the song_!” shouted Miyoung, beckoning their young brother onto the dance floor.

 

“Get your butt over here right now! It’s my wedding day!” Boyoung pushed through the crowd of dancers, who were all now looking at an embarrassed Jinyoung, still trying to hide from his sister.

 

Boyoung marched right over and grabbed him with a fistful of his lapel.

 

“Come on, don’t make me. Please. Noonaaa,” he whined as Boyoung yanked him out of his seat and dragged him to the center of the floor.

 

“Wait! Oh my god, Jisoo is here, too!” Miyoung shouted.

 

Jisoo had also been slouching in her chair trying not to be seen. It was the Hall and Oates song that she and Jinyoung danced at their high school talent show, the one that got them the first place certificate to the waffle house. Miyoung spotted her and zoomed over. 

 

“No no, please, don’t. Unniii,” Jisoo whined. Miyoung grabbed both of her wrists and pulled her off her chair. Then she pulled Jisoo to the middle of the dance floor and then motioned for the DJ to start the song over again.

 

When they met in the middle of the floor, the rest of the dancing crowd had backed out and formed a semi-circle around the two friends. They couldn’t do anything except look at each and laugh nervously and shake their heads. 

 

The song began again. 

 

 _Fuck_ , Jinyoung thought. Could he even _remember_ the choreography? There were so many people watching. That talent show was so long ago. Sweat started collecting on his brow the moment the first guitar riff started to play. He looked over at Jisoo, at his dance partner, and their eyes met. 

 

When the intro ended and the first verse began, everything suddenly clicked.

 

 _What I want, you’ve got_  
_And it might be hard to handle_  
 _Like the flame that burns the candle_  
 _The candle feeds the flame, yeah, yeah_

 

They turned to face each other and started to dance the exact choreography they’d invented together so many years ago. The crowd started cheering, and Boyoung erupted into laughter. Jinyoung laughed along. He couldn’t _believe_ he still remembered this dance.

 

_What I’ve got’s full stock_   
_Of thoughts and dreams that scatter_   
_Then you pull them all together_   
_And how I can’t explain_

 

Their bodies found the rhythm and rode it. They bobbed their heads along to the music, felt a rush of adrenaline as the crowd cheered them on. Jinyoung took Jisoo’s hand and she twirled into him, but somehow _he_ was the dizzy one. 

 

_Well, well you_   
_Ooh-hoo, hoo-ooh, ooh-oo_   
_You make my dreams come true_

 

The choreography wasn’t very intricate. It was put together by two fourteen-year-olds who only put their names on the setlist because they were dared to, and every stupid, silly dance move they came up wth came from some video on YouTube. All twirls and jumping and arms waving around and sassy hip gyrating and cheesy, tired old dance moves. There was even a small lift during the bridge. Jinyoung and Jisoo were sure that they looked amateurish and awkward.

 

But, hell, it sure was fun.

 

_Well, well you_   
_Ooh-hoo, hoo-ooh, ooh-oo_   
_You make my dreams come true_

 

 

It made Jisoo remember their countless, agonizing rehearsal meetings. At Jinyoung’s house, where they would scoot the coffee table out of the living room. They would dance in their socks on the faded oriental rug, and then Jisoo began to rehearse in high heels and she once stepped on his foot. His pinky toe started bleeding. When they could finally dance the choreography without any mistakes, they both fell exhausted onto the carpet and fell asleep.

 

While Jinyoung was twirling her in the middle of the dance floor, he suddenly had a vision of that sunny hilltop house they once foolishly dreamed about. Would it have had a spacious living they could dance in? A comfortable rug to fall onto and sleep on at the end of a long day? A cabinet in the kitchen full of first aid supplies in case his toe started bleeding again?

 

He grinned as Jisoo spun into him. A full stock of scattered thoughts and dreams, and she pulled him together.

 

When the song faded out, Jisoo couldn’t help but wrap her arms around him and laugh as she tried to catch her breath. Jinyoung pulled her into his chest and returned the embrace. They were thinking the same things. 

 

How the hell did we remember all that? Was it this tiring to perform last time, too? Should we go get waffles now that it’s over?

 

When the song suddenly changed to something slower, their laughter faded out. Jisoo looked up at Jinyoung and found his face right in front of hers, their noses almost touching. She remembered all of a sudden that they were still standing in the middle of the dance floor, the only couple that hadn’t started slow dancing. She cleared her throat.

 

“I should go back to my seat,” she whispered. Jisoo loosened her arms from around him and tried to back away.

 

Jinyoung only held onto her tighter. Her heartbeat quickened. Jinyoung’s chest rose and fell as he tried to catch up to his breathing after the dance, but the look in his eyes was altogether entirely different. 

 

But the moment was interrupted again, this time by Yoshiki. 

 

The groom tapped Jisoo on the shoulder and gave her a smile. “May I have the pleasure?” he asked.

 

She exchanged looks with Jinyoung. Then she let Yoshiki take her hand while Jinyoung watched as the groom danced with her. He was suddenly aware of being a single dancer in the middle of the floor during a slow dance. He was going to return to his seat, but when he turned to leave, his girlfriend stood in front of him. 

 

During a lull in her conversation with Yoshiki, Jisoo happened to look over and see Jinyoung slow dancing with Minji. She was in the middle of biting down on her lip and trying to turn her heart back into solid stone when, over the slow music, someone shouted:

 

“Hey! That old man has a gun!”

 

Jisoo whipped her head around, as did everyone else in the room right before they started screaming and running. There, at the entrance, was a small, elderly man in _hanbok_ wielding an antique shotgun. Jisoo froze.

 

 _Harabeoji_.

 


	12. Here I Am

Pandemonium ensued. 

 

People started to stampede toward the door or duck behind and under tables or fall to their hands and knees. Yoshiki dropped Jisoo’s hands and immediately ran to Boyoung and pulled her away from the center of the floor. Jisoo jumped into action.

 

“No! Stop! Everyone, _calm down_!” she shouted, but her voice was drowned out by all the hysterical screaming. “It’s not a real gun! Everyone, just stay calm!”

 

 Random guests crashed into her. Her ear started ringing when she hit the dance floor, her rib cage hitting another guest’s high-heeled shoe. Her vision was a rush of color and the screaming only got louder. She shook her head, trying to come back to her senses and stop her grandfather before he could ruin the evening further.

 

Jinyoung had dragged Minji away from the dance floor and pulled them to crouch beside their table. Jinyoung pulled her so that she was closer to the table and then shielded her with his body. Minji was hysterical, as was everyone else. Everyone was running and screaming and taking cover. He looked above everyone’s heads and tried to spot his sisters and his parents and Yoshiki to make sure they were safe.

 

“Harabeoji!” Jisoo shouted as she finally made it back onto her feet. She shoved people aside as she tried to make it over to him. But another guest ran into her, and she lost sight of the old man. 

 

Next thing she knew, Harabeoji was pointing the shotgun at Yoshiki, who was still shielding Boyoung. 

 

“Boyoung! Stand aside!” the old man shouted. “This man is a Japanese spy!”

 

“No!” Jisoo sprinted at him. “Harabeoji, put that down! Stop this!”

 

Jinyoung spotted Jisoo as soon as she stood. The rest of the scene unfolded as if in slow motion. She ran to where her grandfather was wielding the shotgun and point it at Yoshiki and his sister. His heart _stopped_ when Jisoo placed herself between Yoshiki and the barrel of the shotgun.

 

He bolted toward her. Jinyoung dodged all the panicked guests. Their screaming dulled to a sharp ringing. Jinyoung threw himself between Jisoo and her grandfather. She didn’t even register who it was who flew in front of her. Her grandfather was still shouting angry curses at Yoshiki, and she was still screaming at him to calm down over this stranger’s shoulder.

 

Everything else happened to so fast. Security guards barged into the room. When the old man was distracted, Jinyoung pulled Jisoo to the ground and covered her. Jisoo’s back hit the floor and she watched, helpless, as one of the security guards brandished a taser.

 

“ _No!_ ” she screamed, tears in her eyes.

 

Jinyoung turned his head just in time to witness one of the guards taser the old man. The shotgun fell from his hands, and he hit the ground hard with a painful grunt. Jisoo shoved Jinyoung away and immediately ran to her grandfather. She knelt beside him and tried to shake him awake.

 

“Harabeoji? Harabeoji?” she said.

 

His frail form remained still. Jisoo held her breath as she waited for some kind of movement, anything to tell her that he was okay. Jinyoung, Yoshiki, and Boyoung all watched from the sidelines.

 

 

 

 

 

Jinyoung was fidgeting with his shirtsleeve again when he realized that one of his cufflinks must have come undone in the wild rumpus at the reception. He undid the button on his tuxedo jacket and slouched down in his chair in the hospital waiting room. After the panic that ensued, someone had called both the police and an ambulance. 

 

They learned that the shotgun Harabeoji was wielding wasn’t operational. It wasn’t loaded, and all of its little holes and spaces had been filled with lead so it would never be able to fire anything anyway. Still, nobody in the hall knew that. As far as they knew, the old man was about to shoot up a wedding reception. 

 

He must have wandered out of the house and into the town again. He must have seen the slew of Japanese guests wandering into the hall, and it triggered his memories from the war. At least that was how Jisoo explained it.

 

Jinyoung looked further down the hall and saw Jisoo. She was speaking to the town sheriff, who was scolding her for not taking better care of her grandfather. According to the doctor, the extent of his delusions and memory loss would have warranted him professional attention months or even years ago. Why had they never brought him to see someone, or took him to live someplace where he could have around-the-clock care?

 

Jisoo answered their questions as best as she could, but Jinyoung could tell that she was shaken by the experience. When the panic died down, he offered to give her a ride to the hospital where Harabeoji had been rushed. It starting to get late, but he was waiting until she finished up her conversation with the police before taking his leave.

 

Jisoo gave the pair of policemen a deep bow before they left. Then she started to walk back. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she was rubbing her arms to comfort herself. Jinyoung stood as she neared him.

 

“You’re still here?” she asked with a trembling voice.

 

“Yeah,” Jinyoung sighed as he got up. “I was waiting for you to finish up with the police. “What did they say?”

 

“They’re taking the shotgun,” Jisoo said, rubbing her arms. “Good. It’s better he doesn’t have it. How is he doing?”

 

They both turned and looked into the window of the hospital room where Harabeoji was sleeping. When he hit the ground, he dislocated his shoulder, and the electric shock from the taser brought on even more problems. He woke up once and exhibited some symptoms of a panic attack, and now the doctor wanted to keep him a little bit longer to monitor his condition and then later run some tests to check for Alzheimer’s or dementia. 

 

“The doctor said he’s stable for now,” Jinyoung said. “They said you can go in there now, too.”

 

Jisoo let out a shaky sigh. “I have to call my parents,” she said. “They’re out of town, they need to know about this. Can I borrow your cell phone?”

 

Jinyoung fished his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “You might need to step out of the building to make calls, though,” he said. “They purposefully weaken cell signal in here.”

 

“Okay,” Jisoo said. She looked at Jinyoung and then her grandfather. “I’m sorry you had to stay so late—”

 

“It’s fine,” he said.

 

“Could you just stay with him while I make this call?” she asked. “I don’t want him to wake up alone and start panicking again.”

 

Jinyoung agreed. Then Jisoo turned and exited the hall to call her parents. Jinyoung went into the hospital room to sit at Harabeoji’s bedside. The room had a sterilized, clinical smell that was just slightly tainted with the scent of old age given the room’s occupant. He found a chair and sat down. It was quiet. The only thing to hear was the beeping of the EKG monitor and Harabeoji’s weak snoring.

 

Jinyoung heaved in a deep breath. 

 

Real gun or not, Harabeoji had scared the living daylights out of him back at the wedding reception. His stomach still lurched when he recalled those moments of sheer panic. Minji was screaming, she was scared shitless. Then he remembered looking up and seeing the old man pointing the barrel at Yoshiki and his sister, his finger over the trigger. Then Jisoo put herself in front of them and then he put himself in front of her.

 

He didn’t know that it was an antique. He didn’t know the gun was obsolete. All he knew back then was that his best friend, his sister, and his new brother-in-law were going to die if he didn’t do something.

 

It struck him just how fragile and impermanent life really was. No matter how beautiful or tragic or exciting it was, it could all be gone in a moment. 

 

“Oh, Park Jinyoung,” said a weak voice. Jinyoung looked up and saw that Harabeoji had awoken. His sunken eyes darted around the room. “Where am I?”

 

He was lucid, Jinyoung realized. He leaned forward in his chair.

 

“You’re in the hospital, sir,” Jinyoung said, answering his question calmly so as not to upset him.

 

“In the hospital?” Harabeoji said, then grunted. “Did my daughter finally scrape up the money to get me the attention I need? She must have been quite a slave to her piano students.”

 

Jinyoung couldn’t help but smirk. A rare moment of clarity for the old man, he realized. Harabeoji turned his observant eyes onto the young man and looked him up and down.

 

“How tall are you now, son?” Harabeoji asked.

 

“178 centimeters,” Jinyoung answered. 

 

“Do you remember when you first walked into my daughter’s house, and my granddaughter was taller than you?” he asked and then gave a weak, raspy laugh. “The banker’s boy. That was you. How is your father’s business?”

 

Jinyoung shrugged. “It’s doing fine, I guess,” he answered. 

 

“Is he still grooming you to take over?” the old man’s voice shook. “Haven’t you told him yet that you have other plans?”

 

Jinyoung frowned. “Actually,” he said. “I might just do it.”

 

“What happened to music?” Harabeoji asked. “You _are_ still writing music, aren’t you, son?”

 

Jinyoung shrugged. “Not so much now, sir,” he said.

 

“Why not?”

 

To this, Jinyoung could only laugh helplessly. “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “Writer’s block, I guess.”

 

“Ahh, writer’s block,” Harabeoji said. “I understand that struggle very well.”

 

Jinyoung leaned forward. “That’s right, you used to be a writer, didn’t you, sir?” He remembered that Jisoo’s grandfather had written a profound war memoir and had it published. In some local schools, it was still required reading. The old man nodded slowly.

 

“I don’t do much writing nowadays, either, though,” he said and gave the young man a smile. Jinyoung returned the gesture. When he wasn’t accosting young women and shouting nonsense about Japanese spies, Harabeoji was actually a pleasant conversationalist, Jinyoung realized. 

 

“You know how to get through writer’s block, don’t you, son?” Harabeoji asked. Jinyoung wrinkled his brows.

 

“Uhh,” he said. “I guess so? I’m not exactly sure. I suppose you just have to move on.”

 

“You can’t move on, not when you have writer’s block,” Harabeoji said firmly. “You know what causes writer’s block?”

 

Jinyoung shook his head.

 

“Writing must be an expression of truth,” Harabeoji preached. “When you get writer’s block, it means that somewhere in your draft, you told a lie. And now, the powers that be won’t let you move on. You’re doomed to go back to that lie again and again and again until you fix it. Only then can you move on.”

 

At first, Jinyoung nodded, absentmindedly letting the old man’s words go in one ear and out the other, but what he said began to resonate with him. Especially the idea of not being able to move on, the idea of a single mistake leading him down the wrong path. 

 

“So it is with life, I suppose,” Harabeoji said as his eyes turned glassy and far-seeing. “Except in real life, we cannot just turn back the pages in a manuscript and white out our mistakes. I can’t turn back time and stop the war from happening. Now, I go back to it all the time. It won’t let me go. I can’t move on.”

 

Jinyoung let the old man’s words settle into him as Harabeoji drifted back to sleep. 

 

Writing, Harabeoji said, must be an expression of truth, and Jinyoung supposed that so it was with all art. And life itself should be one’s greatest mode of artistic expression. And unless we live it as truthfully as we can, we will be forever haunted by the lies we tell. He would be doomed to revisit, forever, the moments that he regretted most.

 

Jisoo walked in with his phone after another couple of minutes.

 

“My mom and dad are on their way,” she said, handing the phone back to Jinyoung. She started massaging her temples and trying to calm herself down. “I should have gotten the door fixed. I should have just pressed my mom to take him to see—“

 

“Calm down,” Jinyoung whispered. “It’s not as if you could have seen this coming.”

 

Jisoo took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her heart was still pounding from the excitement of earlier that evening. When he opened her eyes again, she saw the time on the clock.

 

“God, it’s so late,” she said and then looked at Jinyoung. “You should get going now.”

 

“I will in a minute,” he said. “Are you alright?”

 

Jisoo nodded. “Still a little shaken but… I’ll be okay,” she said. “I’m going to stay here until the parents come. I’m going to stay with him.”

 

“Okay,” Jinyoung nodded. “Do you need anything from home? Anything to eat? A change of clothes? Do you need me to check on anything?”

 

Jisoo sat in the chair he vacated and looked at her grandfather’s sleeping form.

 

“I’ll be okay,” she repeated, biting her lips. “Thank you.”

 

Jinyoung gave her a firm nod. “You’re welcome,” he said.

 

“And tell your sister that… I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Her wedding was ruined. I’m so sorry.”

 

He gave her another nod. “I’ll tell her,” he said. “I’m sure she’ll understand, though.”

 

It was half-past 11 pm by the time Jinyoung made it back to his house. Boyoung was staying at a room back at the hotel along with Yoshiki, his family from Japan, and Miyoung and the bridesmaids. His mother was home and he just passed his father on the couch, and he supposed that Minji must be in his bedroom. He wondered how she was holding up. He took his shoes off and left them by the door then climbed the stairs up to his room.

 

What a day, he thought. His sister got married and nearly died all in the space of a few hours. He reminded himself to drive back to the hotel first thing in the morning to check up on Boyoung and Yoshiki, and then maybe going to the Kims’ to check on Jisoo and her grandfather as well. 

 

“Minji?” he called as he turned the knob and opened the door. When he walked in, he found Minji standing at the foot of his bed, dressed and holding onto the handle of a luggage bag. His was there, too, sitting on the covers. He creased his brows at her.

 

“What’s this?” he asked, motioning toward the bags. Everything was packed up.

 

Minji took a deep breath. “I want us to go to back to Seoul,” she said. “Tonight.”

 

Jinyoung blinked at her.

 

“What?” he said.

 

“I took the liberty of packing your things,” she said. “We were only planning to stay until after the wedding anyway. Well, the wedding’s over. And what a big hit _that_ was. But it’s done now, so let’s go.”

 

Jinyoung took a careful step toward her. “Minji, I know what happened tonight was scary,” he said. “But we can’t leave right now. My sisters need me.”

 

Minji threw him a poisonous look and walked right up to him.

 

“ _I_ need you,” she said slowly and intensely. “I _refuse_ to stay here another night. We have a car, let’s get in it and go back to Seoul tonight. The wedding is over, you’ve had your summer of nostalgia, so let’s go now!”

 

Minji grabbed her suitcase and was about to walk past Jinyoung, but he held his hands up and caught her by the shoulders. 

 

“Minji, wait,” he said. “Stop it. What is wrong with you?”

 

Honestly. They just got back from a terrifying ordeal and he had come expecting that she needed him to comfort her, but here she was just trying to get away. Minji groaned and looked up at him. She poked his chest with her index finger.

 

“I _told_ you I didn’t want to come here,” she said. “We should have just gone ahead to New York like we _originally_ planned. I told you, didn’t I?”

 

Jinyoung rolled eyes. He couldn’t believe she wanted to discuss _this_ again. “So you _knew_ this would happen?”

 

“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said, backing up to the bed again. “But I should have the minute that decrepit old man _attacked_ me.”

 

She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him. “I _told_ you that these people were bad news,” she said. “But _you_ never listen to me. You only ever take Jisoo’s side.”

 

Jinyoung half laughed and half scoffed. Minji had brought this up so many times, and he had done his best to assure her that against his sister’s advice and the common sense of nearly all his friends, he had only ever been faithful to her. But his patience was wearing thin.

 

“You’re still on _that_?” he said. “If you’re upset because I’ve spending time with her, let me remind you that I gave you ample opportunity to come with me whenever I met up with her, but you turned me down every time. I have been _trying_ to include you in everything, get you to be friends with her, but you—”

 

“Don’t give me your bullshit excuses, Jinyoung,” she spat. “Do you think I’m an _idiot_? I see the way you look at her. The way you’ve looked at her all summer long. Neglecting me, your _actual_ girlfriend!”

 

He rolled his eyes. “Alright, but if we’re going to talk about neglect, let’s not leave out all of _your_ shining moments from this summer.”

 

Minji scoffed. “Oh my _god_ ,” she said, rolling her own eyes and sitting down on the bed, crossing her legs indignantly. 

 

“You rain checked my sisters all summer long, the only reason you went to dinner with them that one night was because I begged you to,” he said, counting off her offenses on his fingers.

 

“You laughed at the way I grew up, sneered at my friends, snubbed my sisters,” he went on. “You’ve practically _ignored_ my mother and father.”

 

His heart was pounding. His face burned with righteous fury.

 

“These are people who have known and loved me my entire life and want to love you, too,” he said. “But you’ve been too stuck up and snobbish to give _anyone_ a chance to get close to you! And that includes me, too! This place and these people are a part of my life, and I wanted to share that with _you_ , my girlfriend. Do you realize that seeing you reject everything and everyone I love hurts me, too?”

 

He laughed because it was all he could do about his hurt feelings. 

 

“And I don’t even _remember_ the last time we had a real conversation,” he continued. “Because the _only_ person you _ever_ seem to talk to is your mysterious insomniac client!”

 

He took a step back. He didn’t mean to raise his voice. Minji, however, looked unfazed. She scoffed.

 

“Gee,” she said, tilting her head. “I’m glad you were able to get that all off your chest. Anything else you’d like to talk about?”

 

Jinyoung was close to tears. He had harbored these frustrations and suspicions for months now, but she didn’t even react to his outburst. Every heartbeat rippled through him with a dull, painful sensation. His voice was gentle when he spoke again.

 

“Who are you really talking to anyway?” he said, turning a soft, sad gaze on her. “Late at night on your phone? Who are you texting?”

 

Her shoulders tensed. That alone was enough to break his heart.

 

“Nobody,” Minji said, she sounded offended. “What the _hell_?”

 

The signs started to become clearer. All the little lies started to bubble up to the surface. The late night calls, her eagerness to leave, her disappointment at canceling their plans, her distance.

 

“Who’s in New York that you’re so desperate to see?” he asked.

 

“Nobody,” she said. But she had taken too long to answer. Jinyoung swallowed the tight knot in his throat. _Fuck_ , he thought. How long had it been? How did he miss it? 

 

Try as she might, Minji couldn’t keep up her stoic expression forever. She looked up at Jinyoung with eye shining with unspilled tears. She stood up and walked toward him, took both his hands in hers and held his gaze.

 

“Let’s just go back to Seoul tonight,” she said, her voice soft and quivering. “We can go back to the way we were, happy and content, away from all this craziness. Let’s go _home_.”

 

Jinyoung pictured the apartment he shared with Minji back in Seoul, but it felt cold and hollow and unfamiliar, the way Minji’s hands felt holding his. He remembered the way his heart used to race when she looked at him. He remembered thinking that she was the answer to his loneliness when they first started dating, how excited she was when he asked her to move in with him. Maybe they _had_ been happy and content, for a while. Or maybe he was just pretending to be. In any case, he wasn't anymore.

 

“Go _home_?” Jinyoung said. He looked around his bedroom and then at her. “Here I am.”


	13. Opening Night

****Sunlight spilled into the room and splashed onto Jisoo’s still-lidded eyes. She draped her arm over her face. The morning after a restless night. She heaved a deep sigh before deciding she ought to be up. She had a day of errands ahead of her.

 

Jisoo rose from the mattress and walked over to the full-body mirror in the corner of the room. She was still wearing the periwinkle dress from the night before. After her parents arrived at the hospital, her mother elected to stay overnight to watch Harabeoji, and Jisoo returned home with her father. She had been too shocked and exhausted to change out or wipe off her makeup.

 

She grabbed a shirt and jeans from her dresser then went to the restroom to change and wash her face. Then, she headed to the kitchen to make herself a quick breakfast and grab the lunchbox she had prepared for her mom in the refrigerator. 

 

“You won’t need the car today, right, Dad?,” Jisoo asked. 

 

Mr. Kim was on his hands and knees, wielding a power tool and driving a screw to secure a new sill for the front door. “Where are you headed?” he asked.

 

“To see Mom and Harabeoji,” she answered, stuffing her feet into her shoes. “I’m taking the car. You won’t need it, right?”

 

The old door that Jisoo had pulled out of its frame earlier in the summer was tossed out with the rubbish in the backyard. Her father had gone into town before Jisoo awoke to get a new one. Mr. Kim gave a grunt of agreement as he stepped away to examine his work.

 

Jisoo had felt bad about the door before, but she felt seriously guilty now. She was the one who fucked it up back in June, and her seemingly harmless mistake turned out to have major consequences. Usually, they were able to leave Harabeoji to his own devices provided that they could keep him from wandering. He must have seen the door wide open and simply walked out after Jisoo left.

 

At the hospital, Jisoo gave her mother the lunchbox she prepared the night before. All the place had in the way of food was crusty bread, watered-down soup, a cup of pudding and a vending machine that sold chocolate bars, so Jisoo knew that her mother and grandfather would be hungry. 

 

“Harabeoji, how do you feel?” Jisoo asked as she fidgeted with her fingers and sank down into a chair when her mother went to the toilet. The old man grunted and ran a hand along the arm sling. 

 

“This arm still aches,” he complained. “But I’ve endured much worse. Bullets and blades in my younger years.”

 

He seemed to be back to normal, but normal for Harabeoji also meant unpredictable. While he was clear-headed now, Jisoo couldn’t be sure what he would be like ten or fifteen minutes from now. 

 

“We can see if the doctor will give you something for the pain,” Jisoo said. 

 

He continued rubbing the arm sling. “They told me that I caused an uproar at Park Boyoung’s wedding reception last night,” he said, his gravelly voice tinged with regret. Jisoo’s heart clenched.

 

“You gave them a bit of a scare,” she said gently. “I tried to tell them that everything was fine, but—anyway, the important thing is, no one was hurt. Scared, maybe, but not hurt.”

 

He nodded though Jisoo could see that her words didn’t little to comfort him. 

 

“Park Boyoung,” he said. “She is the eldest daughter of Park Jangjoon, head of Abacus Savings and Loan, son of Park Yoonsung.”

 

Jisoo had forgotten how astute her grandfather was before the memory problems began. He had lived in this town all his life, and he had studied all the family registers. She nodded.

 

“She’s his second daughter, actually,” Jisoo corrected him. He nodded.

 

“And what is her husband’s name?” he asked. She hesitated, afraid that bringing it up would trigger another episode.

 

“Kondo Yoshiki,” she said softly. He nodded again.

 

“Park Jangjoon is fortunate that his third child happened to be a son,” he said. “We’ve yet to see the end of the Park bloodline. My family name, on the other hand…”

 

His voice trailed off and he gave Jisoo as a smirk. Harabeoji had just one daughter, Jisoo’s mother, and Jisoo was an only child, too. She returned the smirk.

 

“Harabeoji,” she said. “You need to join us here in the 21st century. Daughters are just as good as sons now. Better, even.”

 

“You don’t have to tell _me_ that,” he said. “I know all about how exceptional daughters can be.”

 

He looked at her with a proud smile, and Jisoo blushed in spite of herself. They sat in silence a bit longer until he sighed.

 

“Will you please do something for me?” he said, sadly again. “Please tell Park Boyoung that I am very sorry for what happened.”

 

 

 

 

 

Jisoo left the hospital around two in the afternoon, and then she drove over to the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for dinner tonight. She knew her mother would be wiped out from staying at the hospital all that, so she took upon herself to cover their meal for tonight. Then, she drove to the Parks’ house, hoping she could catch Boyoung before she and Yoshiki left.

 

She arrived in their driveway just as Boyoung was loading up her husband’s car. When she spotted Jisoo hopping out of her car, the new bride stopped what she was doing and waited until Jisoo had crossed the driveway and stood in front of her.

 

“Hey there,” Boyoung said, smiling softly. Jisoo clenched and unclenched her fists. Boyoung noticed the nervous action and took one of her hands into hers.

 

“Unni,” Jisoo began with a shaky voice. Immediately, Boyoung pulled the younger girl in for a hug.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Jisoo squeezed Boyoung as the apologies spilled out. Boyoung rubbed her back.

 

“It’s okay,” Boyoung said. “I admit that I was disappointed to see all my planning thrown out the window but… no harm, no foul. Nobody was hurt, except your grandfather, of course. How is he doing?”

 

Jisoo stepped out of the embrace and drew in a long breath. “He’s… better,” Jisoo said. “For now, at least. But the doctors and the police are putting more pressure on my mom to find a new home for him. Someplace where he can be watched properly and get the care he needs.”

 

Boyoung swallowed and nodded slowly. “It could be what’s best for him,” she assured her. “I’m sure if you talked to people who ran the home, you could reach some kind of arrangement on the cost. Your grandfather’s book has brought plenty of attention on the town, he’s practically a celebrity around here.”

 

Jisoo nodded. One look at her face, though, and Boyoung could see that Jisoo was still blaming herself for what happened. All Boyoung could remember, however, was how Jisoo had thrown herself wholeheartedly in front of her grandfather’s shotgun to protect Yoshiki and herself. Not that Boyoung had ever doubted that Jisoo was family, but it was that moment that cemented the young girl’s place in her heart. Boyoung put her hands on both of Jisoo’s shoulders. 

 

“Do _not_ feel bad,” Boyoung said, staring intensely into the other girl’s eyes. “The wedding wasn’t ruined. I’m not angry. I’m… relieved, in a way. After all that craziness happened… it reminded me of what was really important.”

 

Jisoo looked up at Boyoung and gave her a grateful smile. Of course, she thought, her spirit sister understood. 

 

Boyoung let go of Jisoo’s hands.

 

“Gimme a hand with this?” she said as she crouched down to pick up the box she had set aside. Jisoo crouched and helped her lift the box up and into the back of the truck. That was when Jisoo noticed that aside from the truck, the Parks’ driveway looked curiously empty today.

 

“Parents out?” Jisoo asked. Boyoung nodded.

 

“They’re out with Yoshiki’s parents,” Boyoung said, and then she groaned. “Glad I’m not there to see _that_ disaster. Mom _and_ Dad together? _Nooo_ , thank you.”

 

“Where did Jinyoung go?” Jisoo noticed that his Lexus wasn’t there, either. Boyoung turned and raised a brow at her.

 

“He didn’t say anything to you?” she asked. Jisoo was confused.

 

“Say anything about what?”

 

Boyoung leaned against the truck. “He and Minji went back to Seoul,” she said. “They left practically at the crack of dawn. Didn’t say goodbye to anyone, I just found out when I texted to ask where he was.”

 

“Back to Seoul?” she said incredulously. Boyoung nodded.

 

“I assume they wanted to get a head start with moving,” she said. “He told you that he was going to New York at the end of this summer, didn’t he?”

 

He _did_ mention that, but… Jisoo didn’t think he would leave so soon. He didn’t even say goodbye. He was about to pick up everything and move halfway around the world, and he didn’t say _anything_ to her. Not a word, not even a text. She felt helpless. 

 

What did this mean? Why did he do this? Will he come back? 

 

_What did I do?_

 

 

 

 

 

Rehearsals used to feel like they would never end. Day in, day out, the same lines and cues and musical numbers. It felt like they would be rehearsing this play forever. Suddenly, though, it was opening night. 

 

Jisoo was trying hard to be the calm one since her mother had decided to be the nervous one. Backstage, she helped the little actors put on their makeup and costumes, and then she gathered them round for one final pep talk before the curtains rose.

 

“Once upon a time, there were these really cool guys known as the Greeks,” Jisoo said, recalling her old drama club president pre-show speech.

 

“Geeks?” asked one of the boys.

 

“No, the _Greeks_ ,” Jisoo said. “And the Greeks gave us a ton of really cool stuff like Euclidean geometry and Aristotelian philosophy and gyro and baklava. But another really awesome thing that the Greeks gave us is theater.”

 

The kids leaned in. Over time, they’d learned to treasure her theater talks.

 

“When the Greeks up on a show, they’d have all these guys dressed up to the nines in their fancy togas and outlandish masks and they’d act out tragedies and scenes from myths and legends like Hercules and Oedipus and Antigone,” she continued. “But the Greeks were also a little different from us, because when they liked a show, they didn’t clap their hands. You guys know what they did?”

 

“Throw money?” guessed a girl.

 

“Good guess,” Jisoo said. “But no, they would stomp their legs. And the actors on stage always wanted to put on a show _so good_ that the audience would break their legs stomping them. Do you guys want to put on a good show?”

 

“Yeah!” they all shouted. Jisoo smiled. 

 

“Alright, bring it in,” she said. She stretched her hand out, and all the children did the same. “Break a leg on three, alright? One, two, three!”

 

“BREAK A LEG!”

 

From beyond the curtain, Jisoo heard her mother warming up on the piano. The children all scurried to take their places, and Jisoo went back out to take her seat in the front row. She was feeling so many things at once. She had started out not caring at all about the summer program, but now, she couldn’t be more nervous even if she had been up there herself. The whole summer had been an exercise in using theater to help kids let go of their inhibitions and explore their talents. She wanted them to succeed. She wanted them to be a hit.

 

It was a full house tonight. The children’s parents were all sitting in metal fold-out chairs that some volunteers had set out earlier that afternoon. Extended family and members of the community had all been invited, too. 

 

The lights dimmed and a spotlight fixed on Jisoo’s mother at the piano. Mrs. Kim stood to receive some applause and she introduced herself and the upcoming production. Jisoo didn’t catch much of it. She was too busy fidgeting in her own metal fold-out chair.

 

“Has it started? Did I miss it?” said a voice beside her. She turned and was startled to see—

 

“Jinyoung?” her jaw fell. Jinyoung laughed at her stunned expression and settled into his chair.

 

“Yeah, I’m Park Jinyoung,” he joked. “Nice to meet you.”

 

Jisoo, however, was still too busy gaping to playing along. “You’re—You’re here,” she said.

 

Jinyoung nodded. “I am,” he said matter-of-factly. Someone in the row behind shushed them, so Jisoo brought her voice down to a whisper.

 

“I thought you went back to Seoul last week,” she said. She recalled her conversation with Boyoung right before she moved to Tokyo. He had apparently taken off for the capital at the break of dawn without so much as a word of farewell to anyone. Jisoo had been sure that she had seen the last of him. 

 

“I did,” Jinyoung whispered, leaning into her ear. “And now I’m back. Did you really think I would miss opening night?”

 

He smirked and then looked down at the flimsy show program he had picked up at the door. As he was reading through the names of the cast, Jisoo looked to see who was sitting in the chair next to him, but she was surprised to see a total stranger. She looked around the auditorium.

 

“Looking for someone?” Jinyoung whispered. Jisoo gave him a puzzled expression.

 

“Where’s Minji?” she whispered. Jinyoung paused a moment, swallowing a hard lump before sighing and then answering.

 

“Seoul,” he said softly. “She’s moving her things out of my apartment.”

 

Jisoo furrowed her brows. “Out of your apartment?”

 

He nodded slowly. “We broke up.”

 

Jisoo blinked. Broke up? Minji? “Why?” she asked.

 

He sighed again. “It’s… complicated,” he said. “It’s not just one reason, it’s a lot of different things all at once. But one of the big ones is… I found out she was cheating on me.”

 

She widened her eyes in astonishment. “What?” she said, her voice cracking with alarm. Jinyoung pinched the bridge of his nose.

 

“Some guy in upstate New York,” he said. Jisoo scoffed.

 

“New York?” she said. “As in, the place you guys were _moving to_?”

 

Jinyoung didn’t answer, but Jisoo understood. For a while, all she could do was stare and shake her head and clench her fists and press them against the cold metal of her chair. She suddenly wished she had been there when Jinyoung found out. She wished she could have given Minji a piece of her mind. How _dare_ she? How _dare_ she hurt him? How could she do that to her best friend?

 

“I just…” she couldn’t even finish her thought. _That bitch_ , Jisoo thought. _If I ever see her again…_

 

“It was a long time coming,” Jinyoung said after a long time. He tapped his index finger nervously against his own thigh. 

 

“Things hadn’t been good between us in a long time,” he whispered. “We were fighting all the time, she was always assessing me in a negative way, she was distant. Then I find out about the guy and…”

 

It was true that near the end of his and Minji’s relationship that he realized that he’d stopped thinking of her as his girlfriend long before the formal end of it all. They had stopped acting like it long before, too. But still… she had been a part of his life, a part that he was now laying to rest, and in spite of everything, he still felt gently mournful. 

 

He still didn’t fully understand why Minji cheated on him. How long had it gone on behind his back? Was it something that he did that drove her to it? He was torn between wanting answers and being afraid to get them. 

 

Jinyoung was called out of his thoughts when Jisoo laid her hand over his and steadied his tapping fingers. She gave his knuckles a comforting squeeze. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. And she was, genuinely. Even though Jinyoung confessed that he and Minji had been unhappy together for quite some time, Jisoo could tell that at some point, he must have felt _something_ for her. Her betrayal must have really hurt him. She tried to suppress the part of her that breathed a secret sigh of relief that they had broken up.

 

Jinyoung turned his palm over in her hand and returned the gesture. 

 

“Thanks,” he whispered. 

 

Jisoo gave him a smile and then turned her attention back to the stage. Her mother had finished her introductory speech, and the curtain was finally rising on the Land of Oz. She held her breath.

 

“So,” Jinyoung leaned in and whispered. “What’s next on Jennie’s itinerary?”


	14. Elephant

 

Daylight waned and dusk came sooner and sooner each day. Like the leaves that drifted from the limbs of trees and fell in scattered heaps around the stone base of the _hanok_ , things seemed to just fall into place.

 

Opening night was a huge success. Aside from a few small hiccups and Glinda the Good Witch’s minor wardrobe malfunction, the show went off without a hitch. Several parents expressed how pleased they were with the outcome and with their children’s positive experience to Mrs. Kim, who redirected all the credit to Jisoo.

 

When word got around of how good Jisoo was with the children’s program, the school district asked her if she’d like to take on a temporary-to-permanent position as an elementary after school drama club coordinator. She figured she had nothing else to do, and the summer program had been such a fun experience. Jisoo took the job.

 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kim heeded Boyoung’s advice and spoke to the head doctor at the elderly care home. After about an hour or so of talking and negotiating, she came away with an agreement to let harabeoji stay there for a discounted rate. She would still need to find new piano students quick to make up the money, but with Jisoo now collecting paychecks from the school district, the Kims didn’t worry too much about not being able to afford the care Harabeoji needed.

 

As for Jinyoung, he and Jisoo were like milk and cookies again.

 

Next up on Jennie’s reunion itinerary was an overnight camping trip. It had gone smoothly enough. Aside from Yugyeom almost drowning in the lake during a race (Mark rescued him, everything was fine). And Jackson’s pants catching on fire (Yugyeom ended up dousing the flames with his shirt, which was still wet from nearly drowning). And Jennie almost fell of a cliff (thankfully, Jaebum had fast reflexes.) 

 

Jinyoung and Jisoo shared their nonsense song about Mr. Cactus Head with the group, and it turned into their fireside anthem.

 

Then, there was an after-hours evening of self-guided tours and themed cocktails at the Natural History Museum. Which turned out to be somewhat disastrous since a handful of their former classmates got smashed and destroyed a reconstructed _Homo Erectus_ skeleton. Jinyoung and Jisoo were exploring the taxidermy hall when they heard the clamor. They ran around the museum looking for Jennie to report the damage, but no one had a clue where she was. 

 

The evening was practically over by the time they saw her emerge from the gemstones exhibit with Jaebum behind her. Jinyoung felt a wave of catharsis overwhelm him at the sight. 

 

The activities kept on coming: a pirate-themed escape room activity that reunited Jisoo with her high school dramas family. They lost the game, though, since none of them could solve the last math equation that would open the final door. 

 

“You fucking useless Thespians,” Bambam joked, shaking his fist dramatically at the drama club when they came in last place. 

 

Next came a build-your-own-burger night at the 50’s diner. Jinyoung and Jisoo experimented with using waffles instead of brioche buns. At the first bite, they turned and looked at each other with wide eyes, wondering if they had just invented something new.

 

Then there was a movie night under the stars, during which Jennie and Jaebum mysteriously disappeared again. 

 

In between the activities, Jinyoung and Jisoo continued seeing each other. 

 

“Jungah, you already had a chance to pick the game last time,” Jisoo said. She had her shoes propped up on a desk, and she was leaning back as she watched the newly formed Elementary Drama Club argue over which improv game they wanted to play.

 

“But if you let Sojung pick, she’ll just want to do Understudy again!” Jungah complained.

 

“That’s because it’s the one everyone is most familiar with!” Sojung argued. “You only ever want to play Narrator!” After her stint as the Wicked Witch in the summer program, Sojung the Shy had come out of her shell and was even voted drama club president.

 

“How about I teach you guys a new one?” Jisoo suggested to calm the tension in the room. She stepped off her seat and taught them a new game, “I Can Do It Better.” She had a couple of players start the game by improvising a scene, and then instructed the players on the side to jump in and shout “I can do it better!” and then take one of the players’ place and demonstrate what they could do better.

 

“I can be poetic about the SAT’s better!”

 

“I can slap Minseok better!”

 

“I can imitate a drone better!”

 

“I can beatbox better!”

 

“I can speak German-sounding gibberish better!”

 

Instead of arguments, the room was filled with laughter, and Jisoo sat back and watched as her young protégées improvised hilarious scenes. The gaggle of sheepish kids had come a long way since the summer program, and it was gratifying to see just how smart and sharp these kids really were when they were allowed to drop their guards and let their creativity run wild. 

 

It was around this time that Jinyoung appeared in the classroom doorway with a laptop tucked under his arm. The children didn’t notice him, and neither did Jisoo. 

 

After a couple more minutes, Jisoo started to applaud and the children followed her lead.

 

“Okay, awesome round, guys!” she said. The kids scattered and started to collect their things. Sojung spotted Jinyoung in the doorway, and her mouth spread into a Cheshire grin.

 

“Hey, Miss Jisoo!” she said. “It’s your boyfriend!”

 

Jisoo whipped her head around to see what the hell this little girl was talking about, and she saw Jinyoung standing there, waving stupidly at her. The other little girls giggled and started to surround him, beckoning him into the classroom. Jisoo straightened up and shook her head. 

 

“Mr. Popular over here,” Jisoo joked once all the kids had cleared out of the room. Jinyoung blushed.

 

“What can I say?” he said. Jisoo was putting her things into her bag, and he took a seat at one of the low desks that was in front of hers.

 

“Whatcha got there?” Jisoo said, noticing the laptop he’d brought with him. All of sudden, he looked nervous.

 

“I’ve been… working on something,” he said hesitantly. He laid the laptop down on the desk and then opened it. Jisoo saw a music production software program open on the screen.

 

“On a song?” Jisoo asked, sitting down. “Dude, that’s great! Can I hear it?”

 

“Why do you think I’m here?” Jinyoung fished a pair of earbuds out of his pocket. Then after untangling them, he plugged into his computer and then handed them to Jisoo.

 

“Just keep in mind,” Jinyoung said before hitting the spacebar. “I haven’t so much as touched a new song in years, so it’s going to be horribly apparent that I am rusty. And, yes, I’m probably going to be a little sensitive.”

 

“You’re such a baby,” Jisoo joked. Regardless if she liked it or not, she was just happy that he was writing again. 

 

“Just play it, let me hear it.”

 

Despite the tone of jest, Jisoo could see in his body language that he _was_ nervous. His hand shook as he pressed down on the spacebar and played the song. It began with a soft, faded instrumental and subtle baseline, and then there was Jinyoung’s soft, echoing vocals, with a falsetto line layered beneath. 

 

_I came back from being so far_

_Past the times I thought would last forever_

_How have you been? I missed you_

_Sadness falls from your eyes_

 

Jisoo looked up at Jinyoung, who was watching her face intently as she listened. His body was tense and she could practically see him shaking with anticipation of her reaction.

 

His voice in the track repeated the chorus: I’m coming home, coming home. The song was sorrowful and hopeful all at once. It was emotive and melancholic, and she’d never heard his voice sound so wistfully sad and hauntingly beautiful at the same time. The lyrics sounded so personal. She pressed her lips into a thin line. Jinyoung noticed, and he wondered what it meant.

 

She paused the song and pulled one of the earbuds out.

 

“It sounds good,” she said. Jinyoung raised a brow.

 

“Really?” he asked.

 

“It sounds… really different from anything else you’ve written,” Jisoo said. “More… mature, I guess. More… emotionally complex. What’s it called?”

 

“‘Coming Home,’” Jinyoung said. He looked down at his hands and smiled. It was his real smile this time. It came out more often now. Jisoo turned to the computer and was about to play the song again when he spoke: 

 

“You know,” he said. “Your grandfather talked to me in the hospital while you were talking to your parents.”

 

Jisoo raised her brows. “Oh,” she said. “He did? What’d he say?”

 

The look on her face made him realize that she was worried Harabeoji had said something inappropriate. But he waved his hands to assure her that it wasn’t anything like that.

 

“He talked about writer’s block,” Jinyoung said. “I said that I hadn’t written music in a while was because of writer’s block. I said it like a joke, but… it was true, too. When we all went off to college, I just couldn’t write anymore. Musically, creatively, I felt stuck.”

 

Stuck. Yes, that was exactly how he felt. Stuck with a major he didn’t like, a girlfriend who didn’t like him, and a job toward which he had only lukewarm feelings. Stuck in a distorted version of the life he imagined for himself. No writing, no growth, no music.

 

The last thing he wanted to do was make Jisoo feel guilty. It wasn’t anyone’s direct fault, as far as he knew, but he could almost exactly pinpoint the start of this stagnant feeling to the last day of summer five years ago. She didn’t say goodbye, and when she left, she took the music with her.

 

Jinyoung swallowed.

 

“Harabeoji said that writer’s block is what happens when you don’t live your life honestly, and you won’t be able to move on until you go back and fix what’s wrong,” he continued. “It got me thinking about myself and the kind of life I had in Seoul. It wasn’t all bad, but in some ways, it felt like I was going down a road that I wasn’t meant to be on, like I took a wrong turn somewhere. Coming home… feels like a chance to go back and take the _right_ turn.”

 

“Overcoming writer’s block,” Jisoo said gently. “That’s a very good way to look at it.”

 

Her stomach churned. She could feel him steering the direction of this conversation dangerously close to the memory of that day. Images of the sky and the sea were rushing back to her, and she was trying to stop it.

 

“Your birthday is coming up,” Jisoo said, wondering if that would change the subject. His brows shot up, and the air cleared.

 

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “That’s right.” Truth be told, he’d forgotten. 

 

“So, what are we doing?” Jisoo asked. She crossed her legs under the table and accidentally hit his shin with her foot. She felt him shifting in his seat. He looked down at the desk and grabbed the edge of it.

 

“I’ll actually be leaving on that day,” he said. 

 

Jisoo widened her eyes. “You are?”

 

Jinyoung nodded. “My plane flies out of Seoul on the 24th, remember?” he said. “Minji and I are over, but I do still have that job in New York, I’ve signed the contract already and everything.”

 

“But,” Jisoo uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. “You _just_ finished saying that coming back here felt like a chance to take the right road, are you really heading back down that way, again?”

 

Jinyoung sighed. “The convenience of being paid is too valuable to just throw away,” he said, switching his voice to one that was steady and logical. “I’ll need to have _something_ before I can jump straight into a recording arts career.”

 

“That’s… very true, I guess,” Jisoo conceded. A smart move, she supposed. It wasn’t as if he could wake up one day and decide to throw away everything and become a music producer. Even successful music producers didn’t start out that way.

 

“Accountant by day, music producer by night,” she said.

 

Jisoo didn’t know why she was feeling so upset about this. Of course, Jinyoung was professional enough to keep his work life separate from his relationship with Minji but… still, she had thought that now that they’d broken up, he’d be free to stay here. Free to fall in lo—

 

 _Stupid_ , she thought. Of course, he had to honor his contract and his other commitments. What kind of friend would she be if she tried to pull him away from those things? She would be sad to see him go, but… she supposed that at least she had these past couple of months to remember him by.

 

Jinyoung gave her a gentle smile. He reached over and tipped her chin up with his hand.

 

“Don’t look so down,” he said. “I’m going to _New York_ , not North Korea.”

 

She smirked at him throwing her own line back at her. His hand lingered on her face for just a beat too long. 

 

“You said so yourself,” Jinyoung said, holding her gaze. “Now that we’re back together again, I’m not letting you go.”

 

 

 

 

 

The days started to bleed into each other. Jisoo could hardly tell each one apart from the other. Life was like a reel of film blinking across her vision, a thousand distinct images becoming one and leading her closer and closer to the end of summer.

 

Jennie spared no effort in preparing the final event in their five-year high school reunion: it was to be a formal gala held on a yacht that would sail from the harbor. The sun was setting earlier and earlier each day, so Jennie asked everyone to be at port by sundown, around 6 pm. In true form, Jennie had appeared on the boat much earlier than everyone else to walk around the yacht and make sure everything was in order. 

 

She was rushing around the port side deck, holding the skirt up on her sleek, strapless navy blue gown that showed off both her tattoo sleeves, barking orders at waiters.

 

“Light those candles!”

 

“Wines on one side, liquor on the other!”

 

“There’s a puddle here! There can be _no_ puddles! We’re gonna have girls in heels, wipe those puddles, Jimmy!”

 

“Can someone get the DJ an aspirin?”

 

Their friends started to show up, and Jisoo realized that she hadn’t ever seen her classmates dressed so sharply. The men showed in suits and the girls in sleek gowns. It felt very grown up.

 

The captain came by to find Jennie and ask her to have everyone boarded and briefed on emergency procedures by 6:15 pm so they could be back in time. She sent Jaebum down to the docks to tell the girls to stop taking pictures and get on the damn boat already. 

 

Meanwhile, Jisoo was up on the top deck, checking to make sure that all the tea light candles there had been lit, as per Jennie’s request. When she looked up, she saw that the yacht was starting to pull out of the harbor, and she heard her classmates on the lower deck cheering. She lit the last of the candles and then made her way down to join them.

 

The DJ started them off with upbeat music to get the party started, and Jisoo squeezed past them to find Jennie.

 

“Alright, all the candles are lit,” Jisoo said. Jennie looked over her head like she was counting the number of guests. Jisoo grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

 

“Jennie!” Jisoo said. “It’s the last night of reunion. Quit worrying and just have fun!”

 

“Quiet, I’m trying to see if I ordered the right amount of souvenir gifts,” Jennie said, and Jisoo laughed. Then, she turned and looked over at their classmates, too. She smiled contentedly. The scene gave her flashbacks to their senior year, the last time they were all together. 

 

“Have you seen Jinyoung?” Jisoo asked.

 

“Huh?” Jennie said, still crunching numbers in her head. “Shouldn’t you know where he is?”

 

Jisoo blinked. “I was lighting candles, I didn’t see people getting on,” she said. “He got on the boat, right?”

 

“Jaebum!” Jennie called, and the former baseball captain walked over. “Did Jinyoung get on the boat?”

 

“I didn’t see him,” Jaebum said. “I… just assumed everyone was already onboard.”

 

“Oh my god,” Jisoo pinched the bridge of her nose. “That _idiot_. I told him to be here at six.”

 

“Apparently Jackson didn’t hop on, either,” Jennie said, happening to look down at the log book. 

 

“Maybe you should have told them 5:30,” suggested Jaebum. 

 

“Do you guys have cell signal out here?” Jisoo asked them, but both Jennie and Jaebum shook their heads.

 

Jisoo didn’t even know how to react. The irony was almost Shakespearean: Jinyoung returning home to attend the final reunion event just to be late to the docks and miss the boat. She looked out at her dancing and drinking classmates, at the gorgeously decorated yacht, and thought of how beautifully tragic the night had turned out to be, and it was only six in the evening. 

 

That idiot.

 

Then, suddenly, a crowd started forming on the starboard side of the deck. People were pointing at something in the distance.

 

“What the fuck?” Jennie said, pushing past Jisoo and Jaebum to check out what all the commotion was about. Jisoo followed her to the railing, and when they looked out over the darkened waters, they spotted a tiny sportboat trailing the yacht. Behind the wheel was a sailor with a dusty gray beard, and beside him stood two men wearing black suits beneath their bright orange lifejackets.

 

Jinyoung and Jackson.

 

Jisoo didn’t even know how to react. She stood and watched, shaking her head, while Jennie sent Jaebum over to the bridge to tell the captain to stop the yacht. Then the sport boat pulled up the side of the ship and a sailor helped Jinyoung and Jackson climb on board. Their clothes were a little wet from the ocean spray, and they tossed their lifejackets back to the gray-bearded sport boat sailor.

 

Amazing, Jisoo thought, still shaking her head.

 

Jinyoung and Jackson made their way over to the stairs and climbed the steps up to the top deck, where all their classmates were waiting for them. As soon as he stepped onto the deck, Mark handed Jinyoung a glass of champagne and clapped him on the back, and then he did the same to Jackson. Jinyoung straightened out his suit jacket and then looked around at all the familiar faces and smiled. 

 

And then his eyes landed on Jisoo. 

 

She was a vision in a sleek white gown that hugged her figure. Her dark hair provided a stark contrast to the pearlescent fabric and the smoothness of her skin. It was curled and pulled to one side of her head. 

 

For many years, being Jisoo’s guy friend meant he had to check himself whenever thoughts of her beauty crossed his mind. Tonight, though, he chucked all that bullshit out to the wind. She was dazzling. His heart was shaking.

 

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Jisoo said, suddenly bursting out laughing. “I told you! Six in the evening, be here.”

 

He shook himself out of his stupor. “Jackson needed a ride, and then we had to stop for gas,” he explained. “But then we forgot which dock we were supposed to meet at, I lost the invitation, and nobody here had cell signal… anyway, I’m here, aren’t I?”

 

Jisoo laughed again. 

 

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. 

 

Suddenly, Jackson appeared at their side with a devilish grin.

 

“Hey, Jisoo,” Jackson said. “Look who’s here.” He motioned at the crowd with a sideways nod, and Jisoo looked in that direction. She wasn’t sure what Jackson was talking about until she saw Bobby Kim talking to Lisa by the dessert table. Jisoo face palmed. When would they ever let this old crush die?

 

“Hey, Bobby!” Jackson shouted.

 

“Shh! Jackson, what are you doing?” Jisoo grabbed Jackson’s sleeve and gave him a shake while Jinyoung was trying to hide his snickers. Bobby Kim looked over and saw Jackson beckoning him to come closer. He put his drink down and obliged.

 

“Oh my god, he’s coming over here,” Jisoo said. She no longer had a crush on Bobby, and truth be told, she never really did like him _that_ much. She just offhandedly mentioned one day in high school that she thought he was cute, and everyone just ran with it.

 

“Hi, Bobby,” Jisoo said, still unable to believe Jackson had done that.

 

“Hey,” the boy said with a smile. “How are you guys doing? It’s been a while.”

 

“It has,” said Jinyoung. “Can you believe Jennie Kim planned all this?”

 

Bobby laughed. “Right?” he said. “I was sure that after graduation she was going to pack her bags and chase down Mumford and Sons, but here she is working for the school district.”

 

“Just goes to show that high school isn’t the whole story,” Jisoo said. 

 

“Hey, you know that Jisoo had a crush on you in high school, right?” Jackson said, and Jisoo immediately smacked his arm while Jinyoung turned away to laugh again. Bobby blushed and nodded.

 

“Well, I didn’t _know_ ,” he said. “But I had my suspicions.”

 

“Dance with her, will you?” Jackson said. “Last night of the reunion, make her high school fantasy come true.”

 

“You don’t have to,” Jisoo said, her face growing redder by the minute. “Ignore Jackson. We usually do.”

 

“Actually, I’d love to dance with you,” Bobby said and then immediately looked to Jinyoung. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

 

Jinyoung looked down at Jisoo and then shrugged and smiled. “I’m cool with it if she is.”

 

Jisoo just laughed because she didn’t know what else to do. Jackson was right, though. This was the last night of their reunion. For better or worse, these people’s lives had crossed, overlapped, and intersected hers. They lived and learned and grew and failed and succeeded side by side, and every one of them had left their mark on her life. And they would be saying goodbye to each other again very soon. 

 

“Sure,” Jisoo said, shrugging. “Let’s dance.”

 

Jisoo let Bobby lead her over to the dance floor, where the DJ was playing a mid-tempo song and other couples had taken to the floor. While Bobby was spinning her around, she say that Jinyoung had wandered over to Jennie and asked her if she wanted to dance. Jackson had done the same with Lisa. 

 

The wind was blowing the salty breeze into their lungs and the stars and the moon were their lamps. She figured that for tonight, she may as well live in the moment.

 

When they got tired of dancing, everyone grabbed their drinks and gathered on the pool deck to reminisce and talk about where they were at now. Someone accidentally pushed Rose into the pool, and then Yugyeom jumped in to save her, and then someone joked that Mark ought to go in and rescue him again. 

 

Jinyoung told them about his new job in New York and endured their accountant jokes. Nayeon had apparently started her own cupcake business. Jaebum was a high school baseball coach now and was thinking of moving back in town to take care of his aging father, though people joked that he was really thinking of moving back to be closer to their class’ representative goth girl.

 

Jisoo told them about Los Angeles, about the time she accidentally read the male character’s line during an audition, about the time she stole Joe Jonas’ smoothie, and about her nightmare roommate who almost set their house on fire. Jennie regaled them with gossip about their former teachers, information that she gained after five years of working for the school district. Bobby had interned for the United Nations in his junior year of college, and he was going to move to Geneva in January to take on a job.

 

It was amazing to see just how far each of them had gone in the span of five years. With all of them sitting together and talking like this, Jisoo was reminded of the way they used to sit together during lunch and talk about their dreams, their imagined futures. She was happy to see that so many of their friends and classmates were close to reaching their goals.

 

That was the general feeling shared by the group of alumni there. They could feel it radiating off each other, making their hearts glow with bittersweet melancholy. It was a cliche that they never thought they would feel so keenly, high school being one of the best times of their lives. 

 

They found their way back to the dance floor as the DJ switched over to his slow setlist. 

 

Couples found each other again. Mark and Nayeon were both dating other people now, but they figured for old time’s sake, they would dance to one song. Jennie, who was never too keen on doing what people expected of her, gave up her pride for the evening and let the baseball captain and most popular boy in school take her hand. 

 

Jinyoung caught Jisoo’s eyes from across the room. He wandered over to her side and didn’t have to say a word before she held her hand out and let him lead her to the dance floor.

 

Once they were facing and holding each other, they settled into a loaded silence and let the music move them as it did. 

 

In a way, it was starting to feel like the moment that they almost had at Boyoung’s wedding. That tender stillness they had fallen into at the end of the dance. JIsoo’s heart pounded: slow and steady, strong and sure. She could hear her breathing syncing up to his.

 

She and Jinyoung had done a lot together. They once fell asleep side by side on the rug in his living room. But being this close, being able to count his eyelashes and breathe his air and sway together while Nat King Cole crooned a love song felt like the most intimate thing they had done together yet.

 

“Jisoo,” he whispered after so long. “Are we ever going to talk about that thing?”

 

He felt the exact moment that her body tensed beneath his hands.

 

“What thing?” she asked. He swallowed.

 

“You know what,” he said. “The _thing_. That happened down at the end of docks five years ago, on the autumnal equinox. The elephant in the room that we’ve been pretending is just the wallpaper.”

 

Her heart rate sped up. “Oh,” Jisoo said. “ _That_ thing.”

 

Jinyoung looked at her face. It was impossible that she didn’t remember. He had waited all summer long for her to bring it up, but it was becoming obvious to him that it was the one subject she had been avoiding all this time. He had to know. He needed answers. He no longer wanted to keep going back to that moment and wonder what had happened and why it had damaged their friendship.

 

He could sense her fading, building up her wall again. He had to reach her before she shut him out again.

 

“Don’t you remember?” he asked. “You _kissed_ me.”

 

Time seemed to stop. Jisoo let out a deep sigh. 

 

“ _You_ didn’t,” she whispered.

 

Jinyoung swallowed a hard lump. “Is that why you stopped talking to me?” he asked. “Is that why you left for Los Angeles without saying goodbye? Or saying anything at all?”

 

That summer had been one for emotions. It was the summer of their senior year. Their classmates were leaving. He knew that graduation would be bittersweet. It was a time for saying goodbyes, for going away to chase after dreams and leave behind childhood things. 

 

But he didn’t realize that he would be saying goodbye to _her_ , too. He wasn’t prepared for her to just cut off all communication. 

 

Inwardly, Jisoo was frantic. She didn’t know what excuse she could give that would satisfy him.

 

“My life was so different in Los Angeles,” she said. “I was a different person, things just got out of hand, I lost touch with a lot of people.”

 

Jinyoung clenched his jaw. Not good enough.

 

“Yeah, but… even _me_?” he asked. 

 

She was his best friend, his whole world. When he thought he lost her, everything crumbled. Still, Jisoo said nothing. Could she really have been so upset that he didn’t kiss her that day that she decided to cut him out of her life completely? 

 

“Jisoo—“

 

“Let’s do an acting exercise for a minute,” she said, cutting off his words. She finally looked up and held his gaze captive. 

 

“Pretend you’re me,” she said. “And you’ve had these feelings for someone for… I don’t know, maybe even from the beginning, but you bottled it up because you didn’t want to complicate things. So you just watched and you waited for your chance, then after years of standing by his side, you finally found the courage and the heart to take that leap.”

 

She swallowed.

 

“So you kiss him,” she continued, her eyes taking on a far-off look as she finally let herself revisit that memory in all its heartbreaking glory.

 

“But then he just sits there,” she continued. “Frozen like a statue, and then stares at you like you grew a horn on your head, then all of a sudden he can’t meet your eyes. Can’t even look your way. He closes up and turns cold and stiff.”

 

She felt it again, that awful, ripping sensation that she felt as she sat there that day, waiting for Jinyoung to react. 

 

“Did you do something wrong?” she said, still speaking in scenario. “Did you misread the signs? Wouldn’t _you_ be humiliated, too? Wouldn’t _you_ be hurt? What did you want me to say?”

 

Jinyoung didn’t even realize that they’d stopped swaying and had just stood there in the middle of the floor. He sighed. So, that _was_ it, he thought. His suspicions had been confirmed. He didn’t kiss her back, and then she panicked and ran away.

 

“You could have told me anything,” he said. “I wish you would have said _something_ , _anything_. Anything that’s not just… silence. But that’s what you gave me for five years.”

 

Jisoo remembered the couple of weeks and months when she arrived in Los Angeles, and Jinyoung still sent her texts and calls and tried all sorts of ways to contact her. But the wounds she bore were still too fresh and new, so she maintained her distance. She drove herself into her work, instead. She didn’t know that on the other side of the world, Jinyoung was lost without her.

 

Their friendship was the wonder that held his life together and the stars apart. When she went away, she left a gaping wound in her wake. A hole that he tried to fill with work and distractions and other people, other girls. But the hole was shaped like her, and nothing and no one else fit there like she did.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jisoo whispered. 

 

She did feel terrible about leaving and not saying goodbye. If she could go back, she would have done it differently. Maybe she wouldn’t have kissed him at all. 

 

But the fact was, she felt like she had to. In the moment, it felt like the only right thing to do. All their years of waffles at the diner and choreographing dances and playing piano duets, these things had to have been leading _somewhere_ , and she followed that road all the way to the autumnal equinox. It made _sense_ to kiss him in that moment. _They_ made sense. 

 

“Jisoo, you’ve gotta understand,” Jinyoung said. “You were _leaving_. You were going to Los Angeles, you were moving across the world.”

 

Jisoo nodded.

 

Or perhaps there was no such thing as sense, no such thing as fate. And therefore, no such thing as right or wrong roads. Perhaps they were all just here on this earth, randomly and stupidly traveling through time doing random and stupid things that were of no consequence to any concept of fate or destiny at all. And whether or not love visited a pair of friends was just a stroke of sheer, dumb, blind luck, which she and Jinyoung didn't get.

 

“Well, I’m back now,” Jisoo said. “And this time, _you’re_ the one leaving.”


	15. Goodbye, Summer

 

Jinyoung’s bedroom was mostly hooks and furniture by now. He had gone through his things, looking for anything that he might pack up and bring with him the United States. He wasn’t sure when he would be coming home again, and he thought he’d save his parents the trouble of having to ship his belongings across the ocean to him.

 

Those boxes were pushed against one wall and labeled: books, knick-knacks, clothing, winter wardrobe, photo albums and picture frames, more books and more knick-knacks. He’d heard the phrase “packing away childhood” before, but this was putting quite a literal spin on it.

 

It was almost noon, but Jinyoung was still in bed. He’d awoken hours ago, but he couldn’t seem to get himself out of bed. That would mean having to start the day, and today happened to be the day he was set to leave.

 

He was lying in bed, staring at the blank spots on his wall where there used to be posters of 80’s bands and promotional posters of movies he liked. He knew that his father planned on taking his bedroom and turning into his, so Jinyoung took them down and stored them in the closet. He looked at the boxes and mentally putting the things inside them back into their original places around the room.

 

 _Time to get up_ , he told himself.

 

There was knock on his door, and his eldest sister, Miyoung, let herself in. She was dressed in a long skirt and black turtleneck, glasses nearly falling off the tip of her nose. She was carrying a plate with both hands, and on it was a slice of chocolate cake with a single burning birthday candle.

 

“Hey, kiddo,” she said. “You should get out of bed, it’s your birthday.”

 

He laughed out of embarrassment and then sat up on the covers. Miyoung lowered herself on the foot of her bed and passed the plate to him.

 

“Chocolate cake for breakfast?” he asked. “A few years ago, you would have punched me in the face if I even asked for a cookie before noon.”

 

“This is the one day a year that I have to let you off the hook,” she said.

 

Jinyoung scoffed. “All those Ph.D’s are making you soft, Noona.”

 

“Shall we honor tradition?” Miyoung said. Jinyoung laughed again, knowing where this was leading. Miyoung started singing ‘happy birthday,’ but in the ugliest, most off-key rendition she could come up with, _and_ she switched each line between Ancient Greek and Klingon. Jinyoung cringed.

 

“Alright, alright, enough,” he said. Then, he shut his eyes, made a wish, and blew the candle out. Miyoung clapped her hands.

 

“You’re getting so _old_ ,” she said. “Twenty-three? Ew.”

 

Jinyoung brought the plate closer to his face and bit straight into the cake. It was sweet and moist and delicious. Miyoung hit his forehead with the flat end of a fork and chastised him for eating it like that. He took the fork from her and started eating his birthday cake. That’s when he noticed that Miyoung was giving him a weird look.

 

“What?” he asked, mouth full of chocolate cake. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

 

She shook her head, but he could clearly see her fighting a frown.

 

“Oh, come on, Noona,” he said. “Let’s not do this today.”

 

“You’re leaving today,” she said. “My little baby brother’s going off to the United States to live all alone, and he’s turning twenty-three and leaving home.”

 

Jinyoung shook his head. Miyoung Noona moved out practically as soon as she turned eighteen. Even when she graduated college, she went straight into post-grad and wasn’t home much. The last time Jinyoung had really lived with her was when he was eleven, right around the time that he first became friends with Jisoo.

 

Now, it seemed like the roles had been switched.

 

It was an odd feeling, waking up on the day he was set to leave his childhood home, perhaps for good. Jinyoung finally got himself out of bed and changed into his outfit for the day. He followed Miyoung downstairs to have a proper breakfast, thought at this point, it was more like lunch. He looked around the house and practiced thinking of it as no longer his. The one-bedroom walk-up apartment in Brooklyn, _that_ was his now. A strange new place that he’d never even been to. _That_ was his now.

 

He checked the traffic on the roads he would need to take to drive back up to Seoul. About four hours, though Jinyoung knew a way to cut that into three-and-a-half. He would have to leave soon, though.

 

After scraping down his late breakfast, he hopped into his car to get a head start on his errand list. Each time he thought of all the things he had to do before he could pack up his car and leave, he got overwhelmed.

 

First, he had to run to the store to pick up some food to have along the journey. Then, stopped by a station to fill up his car. He picked up his tuxedo from the dry cleaner’s. Once all that was out of the way, he turned to important things: there were quite a number of people to say a proper goodbye to.

 

He went over to the school district office first and thanked Jennie for a great summer. Jaebum was there visiting, so Jinyoung bade him a farewell, too. Mrs. Kim had also been in the office, so Jinyoung gave her a deep bow and thanked her once more for teaching him music. He asked her to extended his well-wishes to her husband.

 

His mother and father were a good deal more emotional than he expected they would be. They had just sent their daughter off to live in Japan a few weeks ago, though, so he imagined that they were going through another bout of empty nest syndrome.

 

He decided to save Jisoo for last. She would be the hardest.

 

Jinyoung finished loading up the car around 3:15 pm, but the sky looked like it was an hour later than it was. He was amazed at just how fast things could change in the space of a few hours. He took a look at everything he’d managed to pack into the backseat of his car and sighed.

 

There was just one thing left to do.

 

He bade his final farewell to his family, and then he began the five minute drive over to the Kims’ _hanok_. He switched off the ignition as he pulled up in front of the house, but he made no move to get out of the car just yet. Grass grew up in the cracks of the gravel. Flat stones had been laid on the ground as a makeshift path to the front door, which had finally been fixed and replaced. The tiled roof used to be a vibrant blood orange color, but years of sunlight and weather had turned it brown.

 

He spent so many afternoons here as a kid, learning to play piano and read music. He remembered that once had to help sneak Jisoo back into her room through a window because she was too drunk to use the front door. They once set off some fireworks right here in the front yard.

 

This, too, was home, he thought.

 

The front door slid open and Jisoo emerged from inside the house. Jinyoung stepped out of the car and walked over to the stone base. Jisoo met him there.

 

“All packed up?” she said when he got close enough. He looked back at his car and then nodded.

 

“Looks like that’s everything,” he said. “Except the bed and the furniture and the kitchen sink.”

 

She grinned. “I guess it’s really happening,” she said. “You nervous?”

 

Yes.

 

He shrugged. “A little,” he said. “Mostly stressed, thinking about how much work is going to be waiting for me once I land. I’m hoping I did enough this summer to make the moving-in smoother.”

 

“I hear you,” she said. “Moving in was a bitch when I went to LA, too. Is someone meeting you there?”

 

“The company is sending someone to pick me up at JFK,” Jinyoung answered. “Other than that, I’ll be on my own.”

 

Jisoo smiled. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”

 

Jinyoung frowned. “I guess it is.”

 

“Oh, before you go,” Jisoo said, then she turned and went back into the house for a minute. When she came back out, she handed him a slim white device. His Nintendo DS. Jinyoung laughed as he reached out to receive it.

 

“I’m sorry I lost your charger,” Jisoo said with a chuckle. “I turned my room upside down to find it. Then, I realized I didn’t even finish that level I was on. What a waste.”

 

“Now we’ll never know if you could have beaten it,” Jinyoung said, looking up at her with a fond smile.

 

Jisoo fidgeted with her hands. “I want to say that I’m sorry, again,” she said softly. “What I did was uncalled for. All that confusion you went through because I suddenly cut you off, I’m sorry.”

 

He wasn’t hurt by it anymore. It was like the pain had just packed its things and slipped away. But if apologizing would help Jisoo forgive herself, then he accepted it anyway.

 

“You know that you’re my best friend, right?” Jisoo asked. Jinyoung sighed and gave her a soft nod.

 

“And you’re mine,” he said. Their eyes met, and for a moment Jinyoung felt that he was ten years old again. Seeing her for the first time. He swallowed a hard lump in his throat and then put his arms around her. Jisoo wrapped her arms around his chest and breathed in his scent.

 

This, too, was home.

 

“Don’t be a stranger,” Jinyoung said, forcing himself to put on a smile. He could feel her shaking her head against his shoulder.

 

“I’ll call and text,” she said. “And video calls are a thing, too. I don’t know when I’ll be able to visit or when you can make it back here again, but… I’ll stay in touch. I promise.”

 

Jinyoung nodded and sighed. “Good,” he said. When they finally pulled away, Jisoo’s eyes were pools of unshed tears, and Jinyoung silently hoped that they wouldn’t spill over. If she started crying, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself either.

 

“Be safe,” she said with a trembling voice. Jinyoung nodded.

 

He heard someone say once that the particles that made up the bodies of human beings were the same things that made up the stars and the universe. Somebody speculated that perhaps the reason some people’s lives were inexplicably drawn together was because once upon a time, their molecules sat side by side and were suddenly scattered when an explosion set time on its never-ending forward course. And now their molecules would do anything to be together again.

 

Jinyoung wasn’t sure he believed that, but… if he did, it would explain why he felt so strongly, even as they bid farewell, that he and Jisoo would see each other again.

 

But for now, he let his eyes linger on her face a little while longer. He was trying to remember every dip and curve of her face, trying to make this moment enough to last him the next however many years it would be until the next time they could be together.

 

“Goodbye, Jisoo,” Jinyoung leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

 

Then he got back into his car and began the long journey back to Seoul. Above them, another day cycled into twilight, and summer said its goodbyes, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jinyoung slammed his foot down on the brakes. The wheels whined in protest as he pulled the Lexus off the road and onto the shoulder. He paused to catch his breath as he stared at the sign above:

 

Now approaching county limit.

 

After saying his goodbyes and packing up his car, Jinyoung hit the road. He turned up his playlist on the car stereo and tried to drown out the doubts that rushed him as soon as his wheels were on the pavement. With the volume on high and his focus on the road, he had successfully blocked out every nervous thought and every anxious feeling, but after an hour on the road, as soon as the county limit was in sight, he lost all his resolve.

 

_What is wrong with me?_

 

It was just a line, an imaginary line dividing one county from the next one. But as soon as it came into his view, he was gripped by a sudden, harrowing fear. He couldn’t cross it. It was like there was an imaginary force holding him back and physically stopping him from leaving. Like his body inside the car was going forward, but his heart had turned into an immoveable stone that refused to cross over that line.

 

Every time he thought about leaving or getting any further than where he sat in his car staring at the sign, he felt like throwing up. That feeling you get when you leave home and realize that you left the oven running? It was like that, only ten times worse. Jinyoung’s hands were shaking as they gripped the steering wheel. The color drained from his face when he realized that he knew this feeling.

 

_No. Not again._

 

It was back. The awful stuck feeling that had gripped him for five years before that summer. He could feel it sinking its cold, terrible claws back into his body. And it was stopping him from leaving.

 

Jinyoung switched off the ignition and then leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

 

Why did this happen every time we left home? He never pegged himself as someone who suffered from separation anxiety before. All children eventually leave him, and a good majority of them could do it without a single problem.

 

_Why this? Why now? Why me?_

 

He was going away to chase after his dreams, goddammit. Why was he hesitating?

 

A stupid question, of course. He knew why, he was just afraid to admit it, afraid to give it a name. To name something was to make it real. And it was already hard enough to leave _without_ admitting it.

 

Stuck. Words stuck in his throat. Feelings stuck in his gut. Dreams stuck in fantasy. That was him. He gripped the wheel so tight that his knuckles blanched. _Damn it_. _Damn it._

 

In the middle of his anguish, her face came to mind. And like always, the thought of her was a balm that soothed his pain and made the tangled thread of his thoughts straight again. A full stock of a scattered dreams pulled together by just the thought of her. She made his dreams come true, and there would be none to chase after if he left them there.

 

Jinyoung started to laugh. He looked out at the empty road and realized that it was the same one he’d taken the first time he left home. The same wrong road that he took the first time.

 

He twisted the key and the engine roared back to life. He put the gears into ‘drive’ and started back up the road.

 

An hour later, he was back at the Kims’ house, and Mrs. Kim had just arrived home from a piano tutoring session in town. She was confused and a little bit concerned when Jinyoung emerged from the car and practically hobbled toward her.

 

“Jinyoung?” she said. “Are you still here? I thought you had left.”

 

“Can I talk to Jisoo?” he asked, bypassing the niceties altogether. Mrs. Kim blinked, still taken aback.

 

“Jisoo isn’t home,” she said. “Are you alright? You look terrible.”

 

He felt terrible. But in a good way. He felt like he could rush up a mountain, but at the same time, he felt like any minute now he could collapse from exhaustion. Did that even make sense?

 

“I feel a little sick, actually,” Jinyoung said, hyperventilating.

 

“Oh god,” Mrs. Kim said. “Do you want to come inside and wait for her? Maybe you should lie down a while?”

 

“No,” he breathed. “Where is she? I need to find her.”

 

His voice was urgent and frantic. He was sweating buckets. Mrs. Kim was worried. He felt like the words were going to tumble out of his mouth any second now, and he was afraid to let his emotions spill without Jisoo to receive them.

 

Mrs. Kim shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess she could be with Jennie. Are you sure you’re alright?”

 

Jinyoung thanked Mrs. Kim and then immediately got back into his car to drive back to the school district offices. He couldn’t breathe. His stomach was in knots. If he didn’t find her soon, he might _actually_ hurl.

 

He intercepted Jennie just as she, too, was leaving the offices. Jaebum was with her, and there were a crowd of school children around. Both Jennie and Jaebum were alarmed to see Jinyoung sprinting toward them.

 

“What happened to you?” Jennie asked, brows crinkled in concern. “You don’t look so good.”

 

“I know,” Jinyoung said, pausing to catch his breath. “Where’s Jisoo? Have you seen her?”

 

Jennie and Jaebum exchanged looks. “Uhh, no,” Jennie said. “I haven’t seen her?”

 

“Are you sure you’re alright, man?” Jaebum asked. “You look like you’re about to keel over and die.”

 

It felt that way, honestly. Jinyoung shook his head and then looked around at the front lawn of the offices. Where could she be? Where did she run off to now?

 

 _Don’t be a stranger_ , he thought.

 

“Wow, the sky looks so pretty!” said a child behind him. He turned around and saw a group of young girls looking up at the sky. Instinctively, he looked up at it, too. It was a dusty mauve color and the sun behind the clouds tinged it with a gentle orange.

 

Twilight.

 

“Jinyoung!” Jennie shouted as he dipped out and ran back to his car without saying another word to either her or Jaebum.

 

 _Of course_ , Jinyoung thought as soon as he was back on the road and driving toward the harbor. His mouth spread into a feverish smile when the realization hit him. It was today. This day, five years ago.

 

Twilight on the day of the autumnal equinox.Neither day nor night, neither summer nor fall, and yet everything at once. The day everything changed, the day everything would change again. The magic hour, a mystical time.

 

He looked out the car window at the sun. It was setting beyond the clouds, racing him to the horizon.

 

He pulled to the side as soon as he reached and docks and then bolted toward the one where he knew Jisoo would be. His heart was pounding and his stomach was doing flips inside his gut, but everything went quiet the instant he saw her silhouette blackened against the purple dusk. Jinyoung let go on the breaths he had had been holding, and he walked down the pier toward her.

 

She was sitting with her back to him, facing the wide open sea with her knees tucked against her chest and an open beer can by her side. Jisoo turned when she felt his footsteps rocking the wooden docks. Her eyes went wide when she saw him.

 

“Jinyoung?” she said, astonished. She shot up to her feet.

 

His heartbeat slowed to a strong, steady pulse. It occurred to him all of sudden that he had been so concerned about finding her that he didn’t even think about what he wanted to say once he did.

 

“Hello,” he said gently.

 

Jisoo didn’t know what he was doing or why he was there.

 

“You’re still here?” she said. “Shouldn’t you be halfway to Seoul by now?”

 

For just a moment, Jinyoung was distracted by the view. Behind Jisoo, the purple sky blended perfectly into its reflection in the ocean. It was so beautiful. Exactly the way he remembered it. A perfect moment, a moment made for crossing thresholds and righting wrongs.

 

“Hello?” Jisoo called. “Jinyoung? I said, what are you doing here?”

 

He hadn’t heard her. He took one look at Jisoo and was beset by memories of the life they had shared together, and the life that they could have.

 

Jisoo furrowed her brows at him. “Jin—!”

 

“New York is almost 7,000 miles from here,” he began. Jisoo blinked.

 

“Which is way much for anyone to cross either by land, sea, or foot,” he continued, breathless and trembling. “I’ve been thinking, and I probably won’t be able to use my two-week vacation perk for at least another year or so. Also, if you keep working at the school district on a part-time basis—considering how much a part-time educator makes a year on average, and I’m assuming you’d give a portion of your wages to your parents, plus yearly inflation—by my calculations, you won’t make enough to afford to visit me for at least another two or three years.”

 

She was still standing there, frozen. “You came all the way back here to give me financial advice?” she asked.

 

Jinyoung shook his head.

 

“No,” he said. “I came to say that… that’s too long for me to go without seeing you.”

 

Jisoo’s heart skipped a beat. “So,” she said. “You’re saying…?”

 

Jinyoung took a step toward her, not letting go of her gaze.

 

“There’s a lot of things that I should have done,” he said. “I should have practiced ‘Liebestraum’ one more time before the recital. I should’ve majored in Recording Arts. I should’ve broken things off with Minji months ago. But one regret trumps them all.”

 

Jisoo’s heart shook a little more with each step he took toward her.

 

He swallowed. “Jisoo, not a day goes by that I don’t tell myself that I should have just kissed you that day.”

 

Back then, he was afraid that if he kissed her back, he’d fall in love with her and be heartbroken when she left. What he didn’t realize then was that it was already too late for him anyway. They had tried for so long not ruin things by introducing romance into their friendship. They put so much effort into making sure that things would always be the same between them.

 

But change happens. It’s inevitable. Time was a cold, indifferent ruler that would keep on going despite their best efforts to stay exactly where they were.

 

“I should have kissed you,” he said again. “I left you hanging and I regretted it ever since. Not just because it drove you away but because… even then, I _wanted_ to kiss you.”

 

Jisoo didn’t know what to say, but her eyes were glossing over with tears again. It was everything she had wanted to hear from him five years ago, brimming out now, after all this time.

 

“I don’t know when or how it happened,” Jinyoung said. “But somewhere back there, I fell in love with my best friend.”

 

A tear rolled out of Jisoo’s eye and she wiped at it in a hurry. Jinyoung smiled.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should’ve kissed you. I should’ve…”

 

Instead of finishing his sentence, Jinyoung takes her face into his hands and does exactly what he should have done five years ago. Jisoo had always thought their hearts and souls fit each other like two pieces of a puzzle, and her spirit bloomed to discover that so did their lips. She had none of the hesitancy that plagued him on this dock that day. She kissed him back, unlocking the door she had closed on her feelings.

 

The kiss broke when Jinyoung started smiling too much to be able to kiss anymore. He pressed his forehead against hers, letting their breaths synchronize with one another.

 

“Come with me,” he whispered.

 

Jisoo’s smile was replaced with a look of shock. “What?” she said, pulling her forehead from his.

 

“I said come with me to New York,” he said.

 

 _Wha the fuck?_ she thought. Jisoo scoffed. “You’re joking,” she said.

 

He didn’t say anything back, but there wasn’t a trace of jest on his face. Jisoo guffawed.

 

“You’re not joking,” she said, slightly breathless. “Jinyoung, I _can’t_.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“What do you mean why not?” she said. “Because… that’s _crazy_!”

 

He was aware that it was crazy. She would need to drop some money for a last minute plane ticket, and then she would have to scramble to get a work visa and then find a job once they got to America. But Jinyoung wasn’t fazed by her sense of alarm, nor was he at all intimidated by the challenge that lay ahead. He would do it if it meant they could stay together.

 

“LA was crazy,” he said. “You still did it.”

 

“I did,” Jisoo said, backing away from him slowly. Jinyoung held onto her hands.

 

“And then LA chewed me up and spat me back here,” Jisoo said, her voice shaking. “New York is even more—what the _hell_ am I even going to do in New York?”

 

He knew she was scared. He had a job and a house and a couple of friendly coworkers and connections waiting for him in Manhattan, and he was _still_ scared. He could only imagine how daunting this must be for her. But he needed her there He gave her hands a reassuring squeeze.

 

“We could get a house,” he said. “Or more realistically, an apartment. Someplace with a terrace or something with room for some plants and gets a lot of sunshine. We could go see a musical or something and you could start acting again. We could buy a piano and play ‘Heart and Soul’ on it. We could move the coffee table to the side and dance to Hall and Oates in the living room. Make waffles in the morning, talk at night. Just be together.”

 

Jinyoung reached out and brushed her hair behind her ear. He became afraid all of sudden that she would say no. He could feel it, her sudden urge to run.

 

“I know it’s scary,” he said. “And I know that when you get scared, you run away.”

 

That was her habit. That was what she did five years ago when he didn’t kiss her. That was what she did when she failed to get her career off the ground in Los Angeles. She was runner. He knew that. Running away, that was what she did.

 

“Run away with me,” he whispered. “Or better yet, let me be the place you run away to. Like you were for me.”

 

Jisoo looked up at Jinyoung and she had another tear running down her face. He wiped it with his palm and begged her with his eyes.

 

“Run away with me,” he said again. “This was our dream together. I don’t want it without you.”

 

Jisoo leaned forward and hid her face in his chest. The next time she looked up at him, she smiled.

 

“Can you give me a ride?”

 

 

 

 

 

Night had fallen. Jisoo was aware that her parents were in the house. They were in the kitchen having a late dinner and she used the window to sneak back into her bedroom. Jinyoung was there, too, helping her stuff as much of clothing as she could into the same luggage bag that she had brought back from California. She was prioritizing winter clothing since it would be mid-autumn by the time they made it to Manhattan.

 

She lowered the luggage bag out the window and into Jinyoung’s waiting arms. He had parked the car behind the house rather than in front of it so as not to tip off her parents. While he tried to make room for her things in the backseat, Jisoo grabbed a paper and pen and began to write a letter for her mother and father to find later.

 

Her heart was thrumming in her chest. This was the craziest thing she had ever done. Crazier even than Los Angeles. Her hand shook as she penned her farewell. Once her parents’ letter was finished, she wrote another one for Harabeoji, for him to read during one of his rare moments of clarity.

 

Admittedly, she was regretful that she had to leave this way. But knowing her parents and how completely against her they had been about LA, she didn’t want to have to confront them about this, too.

 

This wasn’t really goodbye, anyway. She knew that she would be back here again, but she wanted her next trip home to be a friendly, familial visit, not an exile from dream-chasing.

 

Once all the arrangements were made, she hopped back out the window and helped Jinyoung push the car out a little further from the house. When they were a fair distance away, Jisoo tossed Jinyoung the keys and they hit the road.

 

After an hour of driving, Jinyoung was approaching the county limit again. This time, however, crossing that line was easy. He kept one hand on the wheel, and with the other, he intertwined his fingers with his girlfriend’s.

 

On either side of the road, trees shed their leaves onto the road, and they flew up in a flurry as they drove by. The wind was cold, the night was dark, and the road was long. Summer was over.

 

 

**_\- fin -_ **


End file.
